


Afterdrop

by ClaroQueQuiza



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asshole Hanzo Shimada, Asshole Jesse McCree, But they get better, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Glacial Burn, If I can swing it LET'S FIND OUT TOGETHER, Isolation, M/M, Reconciliation, Slow Burn, The Brothers Learning How to Be Brothers Again, after suffering, at first, because uh they hate each other, kumichō Shimama, like reeeeaaaaally slow burn, non-kumichō Sojiro, of course, slowly and painfully
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2018-09-07 01:26:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 339,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8777605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaroQueQuiza/pseuds/ClaroQueQuiza
Summary: Overwatch can be forgiven for keeping Hanzo at arm's length despite the endorsement of his intended murder victim. Six months of provisional membership, spent in the field, is a reasonable compromise.But not everyone is on board with giving Hanzo a chance. McCree, least of all.





	1. The Chase

The job had not ended too badly, all things considered. The target had been eliminated, Hanzo himself had escaped unhurt and undetected, and, unlike with most assassinations that had to do with old Shimada connections, he had a client and a generous payout waiting as soon as he could make contact.

 

As he silently passed through the residential neighborhood, the streets deserted and lit at infrequent intervals with harsh white LED streetlights, he was already running through a mental list of supplies to be bought with the forthcoming monetary boost. It was only late summer, but the payout was large, large enough perhaps for him to go to ground for a good long while. His last trip to Hanamura had gone far more poorly than he could ever have expected, and he was anxious to disappear into the countryside.

 

His long and shadowy trek was almost over as he reached the narrow frontage road that separated the residential streets from a park bordering the thick forest crowning the foothills that rose over the city. He had established his base for this job a few kilometers within.

 

He paused in the shadow of a featureless white-painted wall, identical to the walls on either side of the narrow street that hid the single-family residences within from view. He considered the open space, glancing up and down the length of the park. Years of being hunted had made him cautious, but it had been a while since a hunter had come looking for him specifically.

 

If he didn’t count _him_ , of course.

 

But he had made it out of that forest without challenge, and the night was wearing on. Exhaustion was settling into his limbs even as he clutched at Stormbow in his hands. He decided to risk the exposure, trusting in the welcoming dark as he darted out and into the large field that opened up immediately before him, allowing a beeline to the dark forest beyond.

 

A foolish decision, as it turned out. He had made it only halfway across the expanse when _he_ had seemed to step out of the darkness like a performer from behind a stage curtain.

 

The battle, such as it was, was short.

 

The _thing_ that wore Genji’s face did not have his sword drawn when he appeared, but he drew it with a flicker of reflected starlight when Hanzo raised Storm Bow and let his scatter arrows fly. What he didn’t dodge, he deflected, but it had taken only two arrows for Hanzo to get a decent headstart as he retreated back towards the residential streets. The cinderblock walls each enclosed a small garden around the small houses, each a potential sanctuary. If he could shake the silvery ghost for even a minute or two, he could pick shelter at random as he worked his way away from the threat.

 

Unfortunately, he was already cut off.

 

Two figures stood between him and escape. One was an enormous shadow of a figure, hulking yet low to the ground as if it was crouching with its hands pressed to the ground. The other, while smaller, was a tall, broad figure, its silhouette distorted by some sort of covering or cape that fell behind its back. More detail was impossible to see when they were backlit by the streetlights and only the stars provided light on this moonless night.

 

Glancing over his shoulder, Hanzo sped off to his left, zigzagging as he went. His three--attackers, he supposed--had him surrounded in an uneven triangle, and the biggest gap was between--Genji--and the hulk, which he was trusting to be at least slowed down by its apparent mass. That direction coincided with a gently rising hill with a small playground on its summit. It wasn’t part of the foothills he’d been making for, but high ground was never unwelcome, and if he could use it to delay them long enough to make it into the trees--

 

He heard a shout from behind, alarmingly close. “Hanzo! _Hanzo!_ ” He twisted round and fired off another scatter arrow, aiming to slow down his rapidly approaching past just enough to escape once more.

 

A different voice, deep and raw, suddenly called out, “Whoa, there!” Hanzo managed to catch a glimpse of the source: the tall figure, having covered the distance unexpectedly quickly and who was twisted in such a way that implied he had just thrown something. Hanzo dug his heels into the ground, sacrificing his speed before zigzagging in another direction in order to avoid whatever it was. There was a soft thud as something small yet solid hit the soft grass somewhere to the side, followed immediately by a sudden burst of light and sound.

 

Stun grenade. Too far to really affect him, but Hanzo swore quietly as he threw himself forward as fast as he could. The particularly dark night was the perfect opportunity to use stun grenades, and if he was hit, he was done for. He had to make it to the forest and break their line-of-sight.

 

He looked around wildly as he went. Where had Genji gone? Surely he would be the fastest out of the three-

 

He felt arms wrap around him and a solid weight knock him off his feet. He immediately dropped his bow and tried to shrug off his assailant as they fell, writhing and struggling. He managed to work one arm free before they even reached the ground, but the impact was harder than he expected, unyielding metal plates digging into his back as the full weight of his assailant fell on him. His forehead hit the ground with a solid _thump_ , and his ribs creaked as they flexed and sprung back under the strain. It wasn’t quite enough to stun or to knock the wind out of him, but it was enough to stop him stone cold for a crucial moment, his face buried in the sweet-smelling grass, the scent of wet earth filling his nostrils and a shrill buzzing in his ears. The arms, taking advantage of the moment, locked around him once more, pinning his arms to his sides.

 

A whirring sound cut through the fading tinnitus. Something, several somethings, hissed and clicked. He groaned, softly, as the image came to him, of green-lit cylinders rising and spinning, letting steam out of the white carapace of Genji’s-

 

No.

 

No.

 

He struggled with renewed fervor, trying to kick them both onto their sides so he could get some leverage, but Genji refused to let him move. He was strong, and he was heavy, stronger and heavier than Hanzo had ever known him to be.

 

Hanzo heard the other two figures join them; he could hear their heavy panting close by, almost at his side, with two deep pitches, the rhythm of their breaths clashing with each other, with an occasional pause followed by a loud gulp interrupting every now and again. Finally, one of them gasped out, in English, in the same deep baritone he had heard before the stun grenade, “Well, it-it don’ seem like-like he wants t’-t’talk much.”

 

“He is stubborn, but he will listen.” Genji’s voice was not Genji’s. At least, it did not sound anything like Hanzo’s memories from earlier, happier days. But then again, Hanzo could not remember the sound of anyone’s voice, really--his memories had taken on an air of silent films, choppy images playing before his mind’s eye completely muted. What came from behind the visor currently pressed into his shoulder blade was foreign. It did not match the lips he remembered moving on Genji’s face long ago, did not trigger any recollection.

 

Only his eyes had sparked any kind of recognition.

 

And  _that_ memory was enough to still him.

 

He felt the visor move, then, the pointed ridge running down its center raking across the exposed skin of his shoulder blade. “Enough, brother? Will you listen to what I have to say?”

 

Hanzo grunted, a sour, noncommittal sound. He stiffened when the baritone said, his breathing having evened out a little, “I got his bow. He can have it back if he plays ball with us.”

 

“No.” Genji’s voice was sharp. “We begin on an even footing or not at all.” The baritone snorted, and would have said something more, but Hanzo cut him off.

 

“We begin,” he ground out, the words muffled by the grass and forced and staccato from the weight pressed on his back, “with you getting off of me.”

 

There was a pause. Hanzo could feel three pairs of eyes on him, considering. Before the other two could comment, he felt Genji’s hard, cold arms loosen, the hard metal sliding away from his back as he withdrew.

 

Hanzo rolled over and sat up, quickly, but he made no other move. He merely intended to scrutinize Genji’s little hunting party, but even if he had had other plans he would have stopped short when he saw the gorilla. It loomed over Hanzo, despite being a good two meters away, even more formidable than he would expect a gorilla to be for the power suit that encased its body, arms, and legs. Two rocket-like appendages settled on its back, all gleaming a similar silvery hue to Genji’s own exoskeleton in the starlight. Its face was completely unreadable in the darkness, although something gleamed around where its eyes should be. Hanzo eyes widened involuntarily, which it apparently noted, because it _spoke_ , trying to strike a reassuring tone.

 

“Ah, well, we might as well introduce ourselves now that we’ve got you.” Its voice was not the one he’d heard earlier, it was deeper still, a definite bass next to the first voice’s baritone. That didn’t quite cover the fact that it shouldn’t be speaking at _all_ , and Hanzo felt his jaw loosen minutely in shock, but he caught himself in time, setting his jaw back into place and forcing his eyes to narrow. The gorilla shuffled back a bit, taking the weight off one hand so it could paw at its side, as if searching for something. With a short _ah, there it is_ , it withdrew something small, white, and dome-shaped that it set at its own feet. Light blossomed from it.

 

“Or, uh, got your _attention_ , I should say, because you’re not our prisoner or anything, no, not at all.” Hanzo could hardly believe how-how- _sheepish_ the face revealed by the bright light was. Rectangular spectacles hid its eyes behind twin screens of reflected glare, but even so the nervous, apologetic expression was clear on the broad simian face.

 

Hanzo did not trust its intentions at all, however. “If I am not your prisoner, then I will leave. Now.” He jumped to his feet as gracefully as he could, and he was surprised and faintly pleased to see the gorilla move back sharply, as if he were startled. He permitted himself a steely, challenging look before he turned away, looking for the one that had his bow. He pursed his lips at the second figure, standing off to one side.

 

If he hadn’t already seen a talking gorilla in a power suit, the cowboy would have been a substantial shock.

 

As it was, the wide brimmed cowboy hat, the red cloak draped over his shoulders and one arm, the brown leather chaps over his legs, and the narrow, pointed cowboy boots only served to irk him when he spotted his bow clutched in the cowboy’s hands, held inexpertly at his side, right next to three more stun grenades clipped to his belt. The light coming from the gorilla’s lantern threw the cowboy’s grizzled beard, sharp nose, and half-lidded eyes into sharp relief. He was regarding Hanzo lazily, yet he radiated thinly concealed hostility and mistrust in the way his lips set, his stance stiffened, and his gloved hand tightened on Storm Bow when Hanzo made eye contact.

 

Hanzo strode forward, his hand extended. “My bow.”

 

The cowboy looked at his extended hand, but instead of handing over the bow, his free hand slowly and purposeful went to his hip pocket and withdrew something thin and cigar-like. Putting one end in his mouth, he chewed on it once or twice before he drawled, almost growled, “Figured that would be his answer, Genji.”

 

Hanzo didn’t move or take his eyes off of the cowboy when Genji walked back into his view. Green lights now speckled the white-and-grey exoskeleton, dim in the light of the lantern. Genji sighed, or that was what Hanzo supposed the low burst of white noise meant. “He cannot answer if he does not know the question.”

 

“My silence was answer enough,” Hanzo said coldly, dropping his arm to his side and shifting his stance to address the blank visor. He wanted to add that it was certainly _not_ an invitation to hunt him down and assault him once again, but he was not in the habit of speaking much to anyone, much less the ghost of his long dead brother.

 

He found, however, that he did have one thing to say, since the ghost was standing right before him. He threw a sharp glance at the cowboy, considering switching to Japanese, but he would be wise not to assume anything about these people. He was more inclined to ascribe polyglot status to the gorilla than to the walking anachronism currently holding his bow captive, though. He looked back at his brother, narrowing his eyes and saying, although it came out more as a hiss than he intended, “You can only have one matter to settle with me.”

 

There was a pause. “Then you still expect me to take revenge?” Apparently Genji had no qualms about airing their private business to his comrades, even if his voice was clearly colored by reluctance and--pain? Regret?

 

That was odd. There had been none of _that_ during their last confrontation. He had been all poise and confidence, mocking Hanzo’s offering, passing over Hanzo’s acceptance of his own defeat with aplomb, telling him to pick a side with conviction.

 

Now he was almost hesitant.

 

Hanzo refused to be anything of the sort.

 

“It is your right. If you choose to delay, then we are done here.” Hanzo turned away dismissively. “I will be waiting when you are ready.”

 

He stepped up to the cowboy. He felt a twinge of irritation to find that he was at least fifteen centimeters shorter than him, but he fixed him with a challenging stare all-the-same as he reached out and grabbed Storm Bow, properly, by the handle.

 

The cowboy refused to let go as Hanzo tried to twist the bow out of his grip, meeting his stare evenly, his eyes lit an uncompromising yellow-brown by the harsh lantern light. Hanzo tensed, setting his lips into a thin line. They stared at each other for pair of seconds. He was about to strike the cowboy’s chest with an open palm when he felt Storm Bow shift as the cowboy released his grip.

 

Hanzo slung Storm Bow over his shoulder and turned away in one fluid motion. He had only advanced five or six steps when Genji called out, “It is my right.”

 

Hanzo kept walking. “As you say.”

 

“Then you admit your life is mine?”

 

Hanzo stopped.

 

“You admit that by raising your sword against your own blood, you have incurred a debt which must be repaid?”

 

Hanzo turned back, slowly, to regard the cyborg.

 

Genji seemed to have followed him for a couple of steps, but now he stood, tall and resolute, the visor seemingly trained on Hanzo. The cowboy had his back to him, and the gorilla stood a couple of meters beyond, regarding the scene from behind his whited-out spectacles.

 

“That is what you have been doing, right? You left our home, tore down the empire our family built, have wandered all these years, all to pay the debt. A debt to me,” he specified, raising a robotic hand to his chest. He cocked his head, the green line of his visor flickering slightly with the movement. “You even risked your life to return home and make offerings.”

 

“Offerings that _you_ rejected,” hissed Hanzo, incensed. He kept his eyes on Genji, unwavering.

 

The visor tilted up a fraction. “Yes. I do not accept them. I want more.” Hanzo’s blood ran cold, guessing what was to come even as Genji added, “I want you, brother. You will repay me with your life, since you will not accept my forgiveness.”

 

Hanzo wanted to gape, wanted to snarl, wanted to nock three arrows and rush forward and force Genji’s hand, but before he could move, Genji concluded with, “And I, in turn, give your life to Overwatch.”

 

The silence that followed was deafening to Hanzo’s ears, more so than the stun grenade. His mind raced through his options, but there were none.

 

He moved forward, marching gracelessly until he nearly bumped his chest against the metal chestplate, looking directly into the thin green line. They were the same height, he noted distantly. Same as before.

 

“You truly mean to do this?” he asked, barely able to refrain from snarling the words.

 

“Yes, brother.” Whatever hesitancy had dogged the cyborg’s voice before was gone. The confidence had returned.

 

Hanzo, for a fleeting moment, wished he could see past the visor and search the eyes that had haunted him for months, both in his waking thoughts and in his nightmares. But he could not. The brilliant green line was all he had.

 

He turned his head away. “You may call yourself my brother,” he said, quietly. “But you are not the Genji I knew.”

 

There was a short blip of white noise, like a sharp intake of breath. A beat of silence, and then Genji replied, “Then we begin anew.”

 

Genji turned around before Hanzo could say anything more. He walked towards the other two figures who were now standing together, watching them.

 

“My brother has accepted,” he said, formally but with an edge of satisfaction to his voice. “He will join Overwatch.”

  
The gorilla shifted and pressed an enormous furred hand to his glasses. “No. He won’t.”


	2. Compromise

Genji froze in mid-step. The gorilla’s words had been gruff, concise, laced with finality.

 

Hanzo stayed where he was, eyebrow only slightly quirked. A twinge of relief tried to worm its way through his chest, but he choked it off until this latest development played out. His eyes flickered between the gorilla and the cowboy. The cowboy had turned around at the gorilla’s words, arms folded, stance resolute. A bright ember danced before his lips as wisps of smoke curled up into the starry sky, the brim of his hat low over his face and hiding his eyes. 

 

The silence lasted at least thirty seconds before Genji broke it with a disbelieving “What?”

 

The gorilla shifted, returning his hand to the ground and leaning forward onto his knuckles. “I’m sorry, Genji. If your brother were willing, I would welcome him with open arms, you know that. But bringing him in under duress? I can’t afford to do that. Overwatch can’t afford it.” 

 

“But he  _ needs _ this!” Genji’s voice was sharp. “He needs a purpose! With his skills, with his abilities, it’s unacceptable for him to wander like this when he could be doing so much  _ good _ -” 

 

“But he doesn’t  _ want _ to do good,” the gorilla retorted. The cowboy tilted his head back at that, revealing his eyes and training on Hanzo, as if to see how he would react. Hanzo did not deign to react at all. “That’s only one problem,” the gorilla continued. “I’m not sending him out on life-threatening missions when he hasn’t volunteered. If all he’s doing is paying you back for--” the gorilla stopped himself, and Hanzo felt something in his chest twist. The gorilla sighed. “I’m sorry, Genji, I really am. You spent a lot of time convincing me to give him a chance, but I have the final word. If he doesn’t want to help us of his own free will--” the gorilla trailed off.

 

Genji clenched and unclenched his fists.  _ That _ Hanzo easily found familiar, looking back on the days when Genji was being denied something, anything, from a piece of candy when they were children to being able to skip out on training when they were young men. His mind’s eye flicked through a dozen memories in quick succession before he forced himself to refocus on the matter at hand before he got to a clear May night under the fluttering koi pennants.

 

“Do you agree with him, McCree?” Genji’s tone was almost flat, with just a touch of entreatment. Hanzo scowled at it. Was Genji asking the  _ cowboy _ to intervene on his behalf? On  _ Hanzo’s _ behalf?

 

The cowboy stirred, and an unexpected glint drew Hanzo’s attention to the bullet cartridges tucked into the thick leather band on his hat. Ridiculous.

 

The small cigar bounced a couple of times in the cowboy’s mouth, and Hanzo could see the glint in his eyes as he shifted his gaze from Genji to Hanzo. He took a long draw, the ember brightening briefly. He released a cloud of smoke from his nostrils, obscuring his face, before he cleared his throat and slowly said, “I got one question for your brother.” 

 

Hanzo narrowed his eyes. The smoke cleared away to reveal a hard look on the cowboy’s face, fixated on Hanzo with an unfriendly, calculating expression.

 

“Would you do it again?” 

 

The answer was simple, and he spoke calmly, evenly, without any reluctance, even as Genji stiffened, the green lights scattered across the carapace glowing brighter. 

 

“Yes.”

 

The cowboy’s face darkened as he growled “Son of a  _ bitch _ ,” and his hand flashed to his waist where, Hanzo could barely see, was a holster with some kind of large gun poking out. He whipped Storm Bow up and nocked an arrow in a split second, even as the revolver was leveled straight at his chest.

 

“No!” 

 

And there was Genji, directly between them, his arms outstretched, blocking each man’s view of the other. With a jolt to his heart, Hanzo realized Genji was facing the cowboy, presenting his back to his murderer, the fool. His lips twisted in a half-snarl, but he had a more pressing issue than his brother’s naivety. 

 

Surely the cowboy wouldn’t trust him not to take the shot. Hanzo tensed, waiting for the cowboy to dash to one side.

 

Nothing happened. Perhaps the cowboy was waiting for him to do the same, he mused, watching for the smallest movement.

 

Everything was still for six or seven seconds. 

 

Genji relaxed, marginally. His arms dropped a small fraction.

 

“Hanzo.” 

 

Genji was now directing that slight entreating tone at him. Hanzo bristled, Storm Bow still held taut.

 

“When you say you would do it again, you mean you would do your duty, do you not?” Hanzo’s eyes widened. “It was your duty. You were ordered by the clan to destroy me. If you were still loyal to the Shimada-gumi, you would do your duty again, right?” Genji’s voice seemed to thicken ever-so-slightly, but the words still rang clear through the night. “Right? Brother?” 

 

Hanzo had to clamp down on a sudden wave of hot and bitter emotion. 

 

_ Brother _ . Genji still used the word, even now? 

 

But he couldn’t afford to parse through his feelings now, when he sensed his destiny was in the balance. Later. Even if “later” never seemed to come.

 

“Yes,” he breathed out, then again, louder. “Yes. I would do my duty.”

 

“And if you pledged your life to Overwatch, you would do your duty to them as you once did for our family?” 

 

Hanzo hesitated for a brief moment, but the answer was, again, simple. “Yes.” 

 

“And if, after you had pledged yourself to Overwatch, I were to betray them, to seek their destruction, and the only way to stop me was to take my life-”  _ once again _ , Hanzo added mentally. “-then you would perform your duty to Overwatch, and kill me. That is what you meant, yes?” 

 

Hanzo swallowed. “Yes.” 

 

Genji dropped his arms to his sides, but he didn’t turn, still facing the cowboy. “Then I will ask you, brother. I will ask you to join Overwatch. You know already that you have my forgiveness. You owe me nothing, not your life, not your penitence, nothing. But I will ask you, Shimada Hanzo: will you take up Overwatch’s mission to protect the innocent as your own?”

 

Something tightened in Hanzo’s chest, cutting off his breath. His limbs trembled slightly, but he was still master of himself. He stilled them, but only by slowly lowering Storm Bow. He swallowed. “It is too late.” A burst of white noise, a sharp intake of breath. “I have already accepted your earlier terms. My life is yours. If you wish for me to join Overwatch, then I will join Overwatch. You cannot throw your right and your duty away with words of ‘forgiveness’. If Overwatch does not accept me, then you will find something else for me to do.” 

 

There was a pause before Genji ventured in a quiet voice that was barely audible to Hanzo, “Are you opposed to Overwatch and its ideals?” 

 

Hanzo considered. He was unsure of what Genji meant by “Overwatch”, since the organization had collapsed in on itself years ago. Before it had, he and Overwatch had often coincided in their goals as they both worked to dismantle the Shimada empire, but he had not shared their ideals by any stretch of the imagination. And before  _ that _ he certainly had opposed them--anything that threatened the Shimada-gumi had been an enemy and a target, including Overwatch when it emerged from the Omnic Crisis as an international police force. 

 

But then again, he realized with a sinking feeling, once his loyalty to the Shimada-gumi had dissolved, he hadn’t been strictly opposed to  _ anything _ , as long as he survived. 

 

The silence was deafening, begging to be broken. 

 

“No,” he said, at last. 

 

Genji’s shoulders slumped, the metal plates of his shoulder blades clinking together slightly. “That will have to be enough, for now.” He straightened and walked forward, towards the gorilla. “Wait there, brother. I’ll sort this out.” As he approached the gorilla, the cowboy came into view again, gun still raised. Hanzo lifted his chin defiantly, but the cowboy had a rather blank, slightly contemplative expression in answer. He seemed to look Hanzo over, eyes lingering on the lowered bow, before he nonchalantly twirled his gun on his finger and dropped it into its holster. Hanzo was too controlled to roll his eyes, but his slow and thoroughly unimpressed blink seemed to get the message across just fine. The cowboy’s lip twitched before he broke eye contact and went over to join in the quiet conversation Genji was now having with the gorilla, the electronic reverb barely discernible among the low bass murmurs.

 

The cowboy’s head did snap up when Hanzo turned away, but Hanzo gave no sign of caring as he took five steps away and knelt in the soft grass, feeling dew soak into his knees through his  _ hakama _ . He scanned the treeline, standing a mere twenty meters away. He sniffed disdainfully at himself. He had come so close, in more ways than one. If this little hunting party had meant to kill him, he would be dead. Even if Genji had not been here, he could not say with confidence that he would have made it to the forest unscathed. Hanzo tried to assure himself, however, that if Genji had not been there, he would have been far less lenient with the gorilla and the cowboy.

 

He made no move to continue his escape, however much he wanted to. Instead, as he waited to see what Genji, and possibly Overwatch, would have of him, he closed his eyes and breathed slowly in and out. 

 

It wasn’t meditation. Such a thing was unwise at present and had been difficult to achieve for the past ten years anyway. It was a way to calm himself and bring himself back to something resembling equilibrium--at least, until he got his hands on his gourd.

 

When he had accomplished what he could, the conference behind him was still stretching on. 

 

Well then, given that the gorilla and the cowboy both opposed Genji’s proposition, he felt it was extremely unlikely he was going anywhere with them tonight, so he began to go over what he would do if the night ended with him returning to the campsite he had established earlier. 

 

It was a simple site, a lone building that had once been a storehouse of some kind, situated just out of sight of a generously flowing stream in the middle of the forest. It had been derelict for years at least, perhaps since the Omnic Crisis, despite how far they were from Hokkaido. The road that ran past had nearly completely disappeared under a thick mat of shrubbery and grass, but the building itself was tolerably intact, needing only a few repairs to the roof to make it watertight again, and the interior still held some shelving that he could have used. Hanzo had been considering establishing a cache there, but given that Genji and his associates had found him, it may not be as secure as he would like. Even if it turned out to have nothing to do with his present predicament, Hanzo would probably abandon the site tomorrow morning. If someone had found him, anyone could.

 

At the very least, not establishing a cache there would mean he would have more funds available. If he was-- _ permitted _ \--he would check on two or three of his other caches to see if anything needed to be replaced or could stand to be upgraded. Daisen-shi wasn’t too far; perhaps he should start there.

 

He slowly put together a tentative mental itinerary as the small conference a few meters away dragged on. For the most part, the three-- _ people _ was probably the best term--kept their voices quiet, but the deep voice of the gorilla intruded on his thoughts several times. 

 

He could not hear much of Genji’s voice, although the reverb was a nearly constant noise in the background, just on the edge of his hearing and just low enough to defeat his attempts to tune it out, to his chagrin.

 

The cowboy didn’t seem to be saying much, if anything. Hanzo didn’t hear him at all until he let loose a single, sharp curse after the conference had been going on for a full twenty-five minutes or so. 

 

It wasn’t long after the curse that he felt more than heard Genji approaching. Hanzo remained on his knees. Genji stopped a small ways off. “Hanzo,” he said, voice tentative, “It’s not what I had hoped, but Winston has an offer for you, if you will listen.” 

 

Hanzo rose to his feet and turned sharply, his prosthetics whirring at the sudden movement. He walked slowly towards the gorilla and the cowboy. Genji fell into step beside him. Even that small gesture was enough to send a small rush of something prickly through his chest. To ward it off, Hanzo murmured, “Winston is the gorilla?”

 

Genji chuckled, a soft muffled sound. “He would have introduced himself if you hadn’t interrupted.” 

 

Hanzo suppressed a snort.

 

As they approached the gorilla, Winston, Hanzo could finally see his eyes through the spectacles as he turned slightly to meet them. They were a rather alarming shade of bright yellow, but they were also disturbingly intelligent. Hanzo met their appraising look impassively, bowing his head slightly, a bare minimum of courtesy rising within him. Genji would probably wish it to be so. 

 

The cowboy stood off to the left, turned slightly away with the brim of his hat once again low over his face.

 

Winston pressed a hand to his spectacles, a gesture that was quickly revealing itself to be a tic of sorts, before saying, “Genji has convinced me to take you on, on a provisional basis.” 

 

He paused as if to gauge Hanzo’s reaction, but Hanzo made no move. Clearing his throat self-consciously, he continued. “You will not be an Overwatch agent, per se. More of a contact. If you accept, and if you perform well, I--that is to say,  _ we _ will consider taking you on as a full agent.” He paused again, looking expectantly at Hanzo.

 

Hanzo allowed a small frown to form on his lips. “A contact implies connections to people and organizations. I have very few,” he said brusquely. “It also implies a rather passive role, which is not conducive to my skillset or my nature.” 

 

Winston seemed to consider his words. “Well--‘contact’ is definitely not the best word, then. You would be more of a field agent,” he said carefully. “We would send you on missions, probably mostly reconnaissance, at first. However, Genji has told us a lot about your prowess on the battlefield; we’d like to take advantage of that, if we can.” He paused and seemed to search Hanzo’s face. “We will be sending teams regularly to gather intelligence, disrupt smuggling routes, and assault terrorist bases.” 

 

Winston paused again and sighed before moving a bit closer, making a point to look Hanzo in the eye. “Your skills would undoubtedly be useful, but let me reiterate: you will be sent into dangerous, life-threatening situations. Our intelligence indicates that you’re used to solo work, but if you agree to this, if a situation were to develop near to where you are stationed, you would rendezvous with a team, go in, seize the objective, and then return to your station once the mission was over. You would be expected to follow the team leader’s orders exactly.” The cowboy snorted at those words, but Winston ignored the interruption. “It’s not exactly protocol to send a team with an--untrained? No, uh--” Winston floundered at the flash of anger that swept over Hanzo’s face at the word. “No, no, better to say--a  _ new _ member who hasn’t drilled with the team as a whole. In our training facilities. But, uh, your bro--I mean, Genji-”

 

Hanzo could only marvel at the embarrassment that seemed to be consuming the gorilla.  _ This _ was who got the final word on personnel? No wonder a cowboy had made the cut.

 

“-has vouched for your adaptability on the field. Our intelligence tended to confirm that. So--” Winston trailed off, apparently at a loss of how to continue. 

 

“Where would these missions take place?” asked Hanzo, if only to get the ball rolling again. Winston seemed a little thankful.

 

“We anticipate a lot of missions in East Asia, mostly in Japan and China, but you might go as far afield as India.” Before Hanzo could object to the distance, Winston added, “You would travel as far as you could on your own, but we have dropships that could come pick you up as needed, to traverse international borders, for example.” Hanzo nodded slightly, his mind digesting the information. 

 

Winston cleared his throat. “I, ah--I must mention that if you accept this offer, it means you cannot accept offers from any other--employers, unless it is part of a mission. We are aware that you have hidden bank accounts-” Hanzo felt the sharp prick of paranoia at those words, “-and while funds are currently tight, we will be able to pay you enough to survive and maintain your equipment, but nothing beyond that, for now. We cannot afford conflicting loyalties. If you accept, you must be fully on-board.” 

 

Hanzo gave a curt nod before asking, “How long will this provisional period last?”

 

Winston took a few moments to consider, glancing at the cowboy and Genji before he, rather hesitantly, said, “Six months?” then, more resolutely, “Six months. We’ll review your performance, and then either take you on as a full agent, or--” He drifted into silence.

 

All in all, not what Hanzo had expected. He turned over the job description in his mind, considering each facet. Reconnaissance was second nature to him, and “disrupting smuggling routes” was something a former yakuza boss was intimately familiar with. He had dealt with rival clans often enough. Assaulting terrorist bases would be new. He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of intrigue at what exactly that would entail.

 

However, surprisingly, his pride reeled from the notion, mostly from the idea of being Overwatch’s hound, jerked from one part of the world to another on a leash to be thrust in front of Uzis and grenades. A fainter, more secondary objection was that such “assaults” could hardly be stealthy. He had no idea how Winston expected him to fit into an operation like  _ that _ . 

 

The timing was also inconvenient. He had no intention of sabotaging himself, but he could feel a strongly building sense--or hope--that he and Overwatch (or he and Genji) would ultimately find themselves to be incompatible and part ways at the end of those six months. Overwatch had always been idealistic, and Genji’s earlier description seemed to indicate that this latest incarnation would continue that tradition. If there was anything that Hanzo was  _ not _ , it was idealistic. When Overwatch, when  _ Genji _ realized that at the end of the six months, it would be mid-winter already. The most secure of his caches would be inaccessible by then.

 

But perhaps, when Genji found that Hanzo was not worth the effort of whatever it was Genji was doing, when he found the same Hanzo who had cut him to--

 

\--no, save that for the sake--

 

\--perhaps the season wouldn’t matter because Genji would finally--

 

Hanzo rolled his shoulders back in lieu of physically shaking his head. He could tell that the motion made it look like he had made a decision from the way the gorilla raised an eyebrow (if the quirking fur above one eye could be called that), so he asked, more as a precaution than anything else, “Is there anything else I should know?”

 

Winston made to answer, but the cowboy spoke up. “If it matters, and I’m guessin’ that t’you it will,  _ I’ll _ be your handler. I’ll be in charge of keepin’ tabs on you and you’ll be reportin’ directly t’me.” 

 

Hanzo turned slowly to meet the cowboy’s gaze. His brown eyes flashed in the dark and his mouth was twisted into a stiff and unfriendly smile. Hanzo immediately recognized that the cowboy was hoping this would be the dealbreaker, that this would push him to turn them down.

 

He might be right.

 

He turned back to Winston. “Why?” he asked, keeping his tone cool.

 

Winston shifted his weight uneasily. “McCree has worked with Overwatch for more than fifteen years,” he said, glancing between Hanzo and Genji. “Specifically, he was Blackwatch, the covert ops division.” Hanzo’s eyes widened a little at  _ that _ . Overwatch had had a covert ops division? A  _ black ops _ division? “He’s the highest ranking member of Blackwatch, and one of the highest in the reformed Overwatch overall, and is thus the most qualified to oversee you.” 

 

Genji would be far more qualified, thought Hanzo, but it was no stretch of the imagination why  _ he _ wasn’t going to be Hanzo’s-- _ handler _ . He looked back to McCree, taking in the wide brim of the hat, the red cloak, the huge gun hanging off his waist, and the pointed boots (which had  _ spurs, _ he realized with derision), and tried to reconcile it with the supposed fifteen years of covert ops. He restrained himself from scoffing out loud, but whatever the cowboy saw in his face apparently didn’t please him. He could see a muscle working in his jaw before he turned away. As he did so, however, Hanzo caught the glittering of metal, the eyes of a skull piercing him for a split second from underneath the red cape draped over the cowboy’s shoulders. 

 

Fifteen years in spurs and a gaudy outfit, and all he had to show for it was a tacky arm prosthetic? 

 

Hanzo unconsciously flexed his metal toes and rocked back slightly on his leg prosthetics, the result of a mere ten years on the run. 

 

The cowboy might be worth watching.

 

He caught and held Winston’s eye for a moment before bowing at the waist.

 

“I accept.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Hanzo, keep an eye on the cowboy, he's, uh. He's dangerous.


	3. An Ordinary Mission

Hanzo crept through the dark passageway, crouching slightly. The only light came from cracks in the ceiling and the wall on his right, grey and weak and frequently blocked by drops and rivulets of water dripping through on this overcast, drizzly day and running through the patches of mold and lichen that speckled the flaking plaster on his right and the rough concrete on his left. The mold was pungent (and a possible health hazard--Hanzo had been forced to don a surgical mask that covered the lower half of his face), adding to the musty and humid air that felt so thick Hanzo could almost feel it dragging over his arms and legs like water as he moved.

 

He was close to his objective; if only he could find a way in.

 

The passageway ended in a T-junction. He slowed, gripping his bow a little tighter as he tried to check each way as carefully as possible without pressing against the walls. This was not the dirtiest job he had ever done, literally or metaphorically, but he was already smeared with mud and mold and thoroughly damp with drizzle and sweat. At this point, he was merely engaging in damage control.

 

He withdrew from the junction, stepping back as he unclipped his thick and blocky communicator from his belt with his free hand. He turned the screen on, frowning at the schematic of the base McCree had provided him, courtesy of Winston and “Athena”, Overwatch’s central (i.e., only) AI. He hooked Storm Bow over his shoulder before tapping and prodding at the screen, turning the schematic and doublechecking his chosen route. 

 

From what he could tell, the server room was on the other side of the concrete wall, in the main base itself; this passage was a later addition, tacked rather haphazardly onto this Watchpoint during a period of expansion not envisioned by the original architect, so it was hard to tell where, or even if, the shoddily constructed additions met up with the original core base. Hanzo could have sworn he had already circled his objective twice already in the rapidly decaying passages, but there had been no indication of a way further in until a long, rectangular room he had assumed to a supply room or a barracks, and a deadend from what he read of the schematics, had turned out to be a security checkpoint instead. 

 

The disheveled chairs scattered across the damp floor looked hardly any different after he vented his frustration than before.

 

But he seemed to be drawing near to his goal at last. Just a left turn here and there should be an entrance into the concrete shell that had once housed the vitals of the defunct Watchpoint. He sighed as he turned the screen off and returned the comm to his belt. He would have saved time simply climbing the damned building and cutting his way in. He had underestimated the labyrinthine interior and overestimated the structural integrity of the exterior.

 

At least this was a low-risk mission with no time factor.

 

He carefully made his way around the corner of the junction, distrustful of the flooring which creaked soggily under his feet from time to time. He squinted into the darkness ahead; the light was failing as he moved away from the cracks of the additions. He plucked a small flashlight from one of the satchels on his belt and clicked it on with a soft  _ tiktap _ , sweeping it ahead. At first there was only more of the same, the concrete remaining on his left with cheaper, flimsier materials making up the floor, ceiling, and right wall. But soon the bright circle of light found the end of the passage: a heavy steel door, set into a concrete wall panel, the handle surmounted by a digital keypad, with a handscan station imbedded in the concrete next to it.

 

He nodded to himself as he examined the door and its frame. Finally, some progress.

 

He checked behind himself, narrowing his eyes at the grey patches of light visible far down the corridor. Satisfied no one was following, he shrugged off his bow and quiver and the small backpack he had brought along. He opened it unhurriedly, searching through it before withdrawing a small acetylene torch and a rectangle of thin, opalescent black plastic. He shimmied the plastic between door and its frame and dragged it up and down until he found the thick steel latch. He withdrew it and held it over his eyes in a parody of welder’s goggles as he lit the flame.

 

The smell of vaporized iron soon filled the hallway, driving back the mold. Hanzo worked fast; there was sparks flying everywhere, and who knew what kind of compounds he was now breathing in as molten steel dribbled down the doorframe. At least now the dampness was something to be thankful for.

 

Hanzo clicked off the torch and waved it, cooling it off as he quickly took a hold of the handle and wrenched the door open, the abused steel of the latch glowing a feeble red as it cooled. It was pitch-black inside. Hanzo nodded again, in satisfaction. There had been little to no sign of previous infiltration, and the rapid deterioration of the outer passageways was thus far not reflected in the core base. 

 

If there was any sensitive information here, it may yet be secure.

 

He dragged the mask off his face and left it hanging around his neck as he dug into the backpack once more, withdrawing night vision glasses. They looked like little more than heavy, thick sunglasses, but when he slipped them on the hallway became green-and-black and grainy. He clicked the flashlight again, switching it to infrared. He put away the torch and slung backpack, quiver, and bow back onto his back and shoulders before skirting the small pool of steel, already solid yet still a bright white-green through the glasses, and stepping through the doorway, sweeping the flashlight to and fro. 

 

The austere hallway, superlatively militaristic in appearance, looked pristine, with no sign of water damage or plant growth. Hanzo padded down the hall; the floorplan of the original Watchpoint was simple enough to follow--although that had more to do with how much he had been scrutinizing the schematics than with intuitive design.

 

He found the hallway leading to the server room easily. 

 

He had not been the first.

 

He scowled around a corner at the blocky shapes stacked on both sides of what could only be his objective. He should have known, should have noted that the air was not stale enough, not dry enough as soon as he opened the door. The preservation of these hallways implied no airflow to the outside, but there must be for the air to smell so clean, and it must have been fairly recent if there had not been time yet for the mold to grow. 

 

He tapped the glasses, increasing the resolution of the IR vision for a moment as he checked for tripwires and any other potential triggers for what may be a trap. He found none, even when he shined the flashlight on the suspicious shapes. They seemed to be some kind of electronic equipment, thick cables running over boxes and plugged into various sockets. He tapped on the glasses again, decreasing the resolution to preserve the battery. 

 

He rubbed his thumb irritably on the side of the comm on his belt. This mission had been going so well.

 

Now he had to speak with the cowboy.

 

Heaving a silent sigh, he raised his right hand to his ear and gently tapped the earpiece that came with the comm. It beeped softly in response.

 

“Agent McCree,” he whispered. The earpiece beeped again. He waited.  

 

“This is McCree. Miss me already?” The cowboy’s tone was flippant.

 

“I am just outside the server room,” replied Hanzo, keeping his tone even. “It may have been compromised.” 

 

The cowboy was silent for a moment. “‘May’ve been’?” 

 

“There appear to be several pieces of equipment stacked alongside the door. I have inspected them remotely. They do not appear to be active, but their purpose is unknown. I am moving to inspect them closer.”

 

The cowboy only grunted in reply.

 

Hanzo tapped at the night vision glasses again as he cautiously moved into the hallway. He passed the pile of equipment, moving to the next hallway to check for any hostile observers, but there appeared to be none. He returned slowly to the equipment, which was composed of about a dozen small crates piled about waist-high on both sides of the server room door. He examined the door first. It was almost identical to the one he had broken through, except there was a retina scanner in addition to the handscan. 

 

“The door does not appear to be compromised. I am checking the equipment.”

 

He squatted, shining the flashlight on the crates. The crates and cables were an almost uniform green, but he could see some writing. He pushed the glasses up with one hand while clicking the flashlight back into visible light with the other. He immediately recognized the logo it revealed.

 

“Batteries.” 

 

“Say again?”

 

“Portable batteries.” He followed the cables to two thick plate-like devices pressing flush to the walls. “They are connected to inductive chargers.”

 

The cowboy was silent for a moment. “Charge your comm while you’re there,” he drawled.

 

“I am moving to access the server room.”

 

“Wait. Are you secure?” asked the cowboy brusquely. 

 

“There is no sign of any others here.” 

 

“How much did you check?”

 

“Enough,” lied Hanzo. “There is no one.” 

 

“Check again while I get Winston in on this.”  

 

“Acknowledged,” Hanzo said, a tad snappish. It was highly unlikely that he had just so happened to stumble on the perpetrators in the act. They were long gone. All that remained to do was to see if they had managed to take what they had come for, and the faster Hanzo did that, the faster he, too, could be gone.

 

Nevertheless, he stood and moved away from the door, back in the direction he came. He unclipped the comm from his belt and brought up the schematics again, this time in holographic mode. He raised the night vision glasses onto the top of his head as he considered the slowly rotating 3D rendering of the building. There were at least six ways to get to this hallway; which would be the likeliest way they would have come in? Hanzo himself had chosen to enter at ground-level after checking the perimeter. He had not seen anything suspicious. 

 

Perhaps they had come from the opposite direction. 

 

Hanzo lowered the glasses over his eyes once more as he closed the holographic display and headed for a stairwell that seemed to run from the basement all the way to the roof. He found it easily enough, and his suspicions were half-confirmed when he opened the unlocked door to find a pool of water immediately at his feet. Water was dripping down the walls, and puddles of varying sizes littered the landing before him and the steps leading up and down. Whoever had come here had come long enough ago to allow a sizeable amount of water to penetrate the building.

 

He climbed the concrete steps warily, despite his confidence that he would find no one. Storm Bow hung loosely off his shoulder, but he saw no reason to have it at the ready.

 

He was soon greeted by light bouncing off the drab walls down the stairway, allowing him to push the glasses back onto the crown of his head. He came to the roof access itself four flights up. Here indeed was the site of the forced entry. It looked like the perpetrators had simply smashed their way in. The steel door was crumpled to one side, its latch and hinges warped and twisted. Hanzo cautiously looked out. Grey roof gravel stretched out to a low parapet. The stormy Sea of Japan stretched even further beyond under a low and ominous cloudbank. Hanzo focused on the gravel. The rough pebbles were scattered randomly all the way up to the threshold, a few even scattered into the building itself. No indication of footprints or spaces swept clean to set down equipment.

 

Hanzo tapped his earpiece. “Shimada to Agent McCree. I have located their entry point on the roof. There is no sign of recent activity.” 

 

“Now, I knew you’d’ve told me that before if you’d really looked, Shimada.” The cowboy’s voice oozed with smugness. Hanzo bit his tongue rather than bite back a response. 

 

“Mr. Shimada?” Winston’s deep bass sounded tinny through the tiny earpiece speaker. “You say you’ve found an induction charger next to the servers?” 

 

“Yes.” 

 

“Return there. Access the server room and see if you can figure out what they were up to.”

 

“Acknowledged.” Hanzo descended the steps unhurriedly, sloughing off the backpack once more to get the torch and “goggles”.

 

“Get some photos of their setup before you start, if you would,” Winston added as he went. “Could be useful.” 

 

“Acknowledged.”

 

“How was the trip out there, Shimada?” interjected the cowboy.

 

Hanzo did not reply until he got back to the server room and unclipped the comm. “Photographs incoming,” he murmured as he focused on the equipment from different angles and distances. He checked for any serial numbers that may aid in determining their origin, but there was nothing beyond the model numbers on the portable batteries’ cases. After Winston radioed in his satisfaction, Hanzo clipped the comm back on his belt and got to work on the door, once again shielding his eyes from the acetylene flame. He glanced at the floor. Hopefully the floor tiles here were not made of flammable plastic.

 

That had been quite the surprise, back on that job in Busan.

 

He dropped the night vision glasses over his eyes as soon as he finished, with the floor smoking but not alit. He pushed the door open slowly and stepped back slightly as he set the torch down in favor of the flashlight.

 

Five rows of server racks led away from him. About half of the shelves were empty, the rest filled with servers connected with meticulously organized holoethernet cables, bunched together and running in ordered lines up and down the legs of the racks. 

 

A shadow appeared from between two of the rows on the left.

 

Hanzo shrugged his bow off his shoulder into his hand and grabbed an arrow in a flash. The flashlight clattered to the floor as he aimed at the shadow, which continued moving toward him unconcernedly.

 

It was an elongated cube with rounded edges, trundling along on wheels hidden behind stiff-bristled brushes that continuously swept the floor as it went. It had two three-fingered appendages, one on either side of its case, folded neatly into fasteners. It had a “face” that was simply two green diodes that flickered as it slowed and stopped just short of the doorway.

 

Hanzo stared at it.

 

“Hello!” it chirped in a high-pitched, giggly voice. “I’m low on cleaner and my wifi isn’t working! Please let a member of the cleaning staff know! Thanks!” A short electronic melody played as it shuffled just out of the sight to the right of the door. “Entering power-saving mode. Good night!” The faint glow thrown by the green diodes disappeared.

 

Hanzo stood nonplussed for a moment. 

 

“Was that--was that Ricky?” asked Winston.

 

“Shimada? What’s goin’ on?”

 

“It is an automated cleaning bot,” Hanzo stepped through the doorway, staring at the bot parked pressed against the wall right next to the door. 

 

“So it  _ was _ Ricky! Or one of his cousins. I don’t know if Niigata had the same models we do. I wasn’t expecting to hear him on the comm!” Winston sounded greatly amused. 

 

Hanzo glanced at the induction charger plate pressed against the wall. It lined up, more or less, with the bot. “The charger appears to have been meant for it. The bot.”

 

“What?” the cowboy asked.

 

“The bot’s own charger appears to be-” Hanzo pushed at the bot with a metal foot, sliding its uncooperative wheels a few centimeters to reveal a wireless charging plate set into the floor, contrasting with the linoleum floor tiles. “-next to the door. The perpetrators’ goal was to power the bot.”

 

“Now why-” the cowboy began.

 

“Mr. Shimada, check the servers. Row 3, rack 8, bottom shelf, to be exact,” Winston interrupted. 

 

Hanzo had already caught on and was looking for the bot’s wired connections. “Yes, the bot’s holoethernet cable is hanging out of the control panel. Clever,” he allowed of the perpetrators as he turned and headed for the middle row of servers. “Very clever.”

 

There was silence over the comm as he walked down the aisle, counting racks. He got to the correct one and at his feet was a holoethernet cable trailing back to the bundle of cable it had been ripped from. “Confirmed,” he said, squatting. “I suppose this was the server I was to check on?”

 

“Yes,” sighed Winston. “Go ahead and plug in. Athena will check it, but they probably wiped it afterward.” 

 

“Acknowledged,” Hanzo said absently as he lowered the backpack to the floor once more and withdrew a holoethernet cable of his own from one of the side pockets. He flicked open a panel on the comm’s side and plugged one end into it, then he picked up the loose cable on the floor and connected the other end. The bottom server hummed to life, weakly. The comm was half-battery, but it would still only be able to power one server at a time as Athena ran her algorithms. Luckily, one of the benefits of the holoethernet cables was that they acted simultaneously as data and power cables, and they generally allowed for pass-through power supply, with one server acting as a bridge to power another. 

 

Still, Athena would have to work fast. Hanzo found himself wondering if they should have attempted to use the cleaning bot, as the perpetrators had. Its battery was certain to be much bigger. It turned out not to matter. The bottom server’s LED lights soon faded, followed by the server above it powering on. One after another, the lights worked their way up to the top of the rack.

 

“Analysis complete.”

 

Hanzo quirked an eyebrow slightly. A deep, musical soprano was speaking over the link, enriched by a Bantu accent. 

 

“Athena?” he asked cautiously.

 

“Yes, Mr. Shimada. Forgive me, we have not spoken before. I am Athena.”

 

What did one say to an AI? Was it like speaking to an Omnic? Did one introduce themselves over the comm while on an active mission? 

 

Hanzo opted for simplicity. “Shimada Hanzo,” he muttered, feeling a bit foolish since the AI already knew his name. “Your analysis?”

 

“Yes. The servers have been accessed by an unknown user. Most of the data has been erased, but there are still timestamps. The last is from five months ago.”

 

“Right around the time of the Recall,” said the cowboy. “Right when info about Overwatch became valuable again.”

 

Winston hummed into the comm. “Can you tell what kind of data was stolen?” 

 

“I’m afraid not, Winston. I can’t even tell what program they used to break the security protocols. However, such evidence may be available in the bot. I’d like to scan it as well.” 

 

There were a couple of beats of silence.

 

“Oh, uh, Mr. Shimada? Please link with the bot.”

 

“Acknowledged.” Hanzo frowned a bit as he stalked back to the entrance and the powered down bot beside it. Was he supposed to follow the AI’s directions, as well? He had only been in contact with the cowboy for the last six weeks, and he had gleaned fairly little about the chain of command in that time. He had been under the impression that the cowboy was above Hanzo, and Winston was above the cowboy, fin. Was the AI some kind of co-commander? Or did it outrank Hanzo because it was Winston’s assistant?

 

He picked up the bot’s cable and connected it to the comm, pushing outside his questions for the moment. He waited. The bot gave no indication of powering up, but Athena soon spoke again. “Infiltration confirmed. They do not seem to have erased the bot’s memory as they did the servers.”

 

“Sloppy, but a stroke of luck for us,” said Winston. “We’ll copy the data for analysis and see if it leads us anywhere. Mr. Shimada?” 

 

“Yes?”

 

“Are you able to reseal the doors? All of them?”

 

Hanzo considered the heavy steel. “Unlikely, but I will attempt it after I move the bot to the center of the room.”

 

“Good idea. Afterward, go ahead and evacuate to the safehouse. Winston out.” 

 

“Anything else?” Hanzo bit out to the other person on the line.

 

“Nah. I’ll stay on the line, though, just in case.” 

 

“Acknowledged.” Hanzo suppressed a growl as he tugged the bot away from the door. If there was anything he hated about his association with Overwatch, it was being monitored. He had spent years in hiding, shying away from anything that would produce a viable trace on his movements, and now he had a communicator that was as good as an extension of the AI hanging off his belt and voices literally whispering in his ear from halfway across the world. McCree had given him a brief assurance that the connection was secure and untraceable, but Athena was only one AI among many. Who knew how many others were listening in, especially when the connection was maintained for interminable amounts of time.

 

Having the cowboy himself in his ear only heightened his paranoia. At least he did not seem to be in the mood to converse. The silence dragged on as Hanzo moved the bot into one of the aisles between racks, tearing off its arms and tipping it onto its side for good measure before he pulled the door closed and lit the torch. He had never had any formal training in welding, just what he had gleaned from video tutorials watched in public libraries, but he managed to weld the door shut in relatively short order, and without igniting either the floor or the batteries on either side.

 

The roof access door was fairly difficult. Hanzo hefted the door back into its frame and awkwardly pressed into it with his shoulder as he tried to melt its edges into the frame. The final result was unlikely to hold against a determined intruder in his opinion, but that was not his concern. He returned to his point of entry. He had to remelt the puddle of steel he had left earlier, but he soon had this last entrance sealed.

 

“The last access point is sealed. I am evacuating.”

 

He moved back down the mildewy and molding passage, lifting his mask back over his mouth and nose. He tapped the earpiece. “Agent McCree. I have sealed the last access point and I am now evacuating. Please acknowledge.” More silence, and then-

 

“Mr. Shimada, this is Athena. Agent McCree is currently off-duty.” 

 

Hanzo pressed his lips firmly together.

 

He retraced his steps, passing through decaying rooms and passages and stepping around furniture that had been left behind in various states of order and disorder when the Watchpoint was abandoned. Eventually he stepped out of the small service entrance he had chosen to enter the complex, hidden from sight in a small courtyard the Watchpoint’s buildings formed as they huddled together on a low, flattened hilltop that dropped down directly into the sea. The remains of a dry landscape garden sat in the center of the courtyard, the sand and gravel blown away by storms and typhoons. 

 

Now that he was exposed again, Hanzo moved silently and keeping to the shadows as he worked his way through the low outbuildings and bunkers that led downhill to the Watchpoint’s small docks on the shore at the foot of the hill. He breathed deeply as he went, enjoying the salty air while he could. 

 

He wrinkled his nose when he caught sight of the small craft that had brought him here. It was little more than a dinghy, albeit a self-piloted dinghy. 

 

It had picked him up in the outskirts of Niigata City and brought him across the strait separating the mainland from Sado Island, where Watchpoint: Niigata had been constructed, partially to guard against the titanic Omnic that still roamed the Sea of Japan, and partially as a staging area for the three Watchpoints that stood guard on the Honshu side of Tsugaru Strait. The JSDF had taken those three over when Overwatch was disbanded, but had opted to build its own base near Hosu rather than go to the trouble of maintaining Watchpoint: Niigata on the small island, leaving it to succumb to the elements. But Overwatch’s demise had been fairly chaotic in the wake of the Switzerland bombing, and while most of the Watchpoints worldwide had been absorbed into their host countries’ militaries, some had been decommissioned in a rather haphazard manner, leading Winston to fear that valuable information had been left behind.

 

It would appear that he had been correct.

 

Right now, however, Hanzo was far more worried about the trip back to the mainland. The trip here had been nothing less than a nightmare; there was a storm sideswiping the north shore of Honshu, and while there was only drizzle falling from the clouds above, the sea was a heaving mess. Even in the tiny harbor protected by a breakwater, the dinghy was bouncing up and down and tilting from side to side. 

 

Hanzo was not a seafarer; he could get violently seasick if he spent enough time on even a huge and steady cruiseship, a fact that he bitterly remembered from his childhood during a rare family trip. Genji had been delighted at how well he’d acclimated to the sea. Hanzo had spent nearly the whole voyage in the cabin, and never far from the head. 

 

He had no doubt that Genji had told the cowboy of this, given the cowboy’s impertinent question earlier. 

 

He stepped unsteadily into the dinghy and fell more than sat before the dimly glowing console that showed Sado and the Niigata coastline. He prodded at the screen and leaned forward over his knees as the electric motor whirred softly, the water burbling as the craft prepared to return the way it came. His stomach was already beginning to rebel.

 

He managed not to vomit during the return trip, but it was a close thing. The sea was much rougher than it had been on the way out, and while the dinghy did its best to plow head-on into the waves, the course was not at a favorable angle to the waves. Hanzo had managed to keep mostly dry on the way to Sado, but now he was soon soaked to the bone despite the black rain poncho he had brought along. He was glad for the plastic bags protecting his weapons and supplies, but it was little comfort for the cold wind stealing his body heat even though summer was not quite yet winding down to autumn.

 

At least he could see the waves as they rocked and disturbed the boat. That helped the seasickness by a minute amount, even though he was being jostled much more.

 

By the time the dinghy pulled alongside the dock in a smallish town to the northeast of Niigata City, Hanzo felt disorientated and weak. He stepped shakily onto solid ground and did not spare a glance at the craft as he walked away as quickly as he could, weaving a little as he went and leaving a wet water trail behind. 

 

He gradually felt a little better as he made his way through the quiet streets to the safehouse, the hood of the poncho pulled low over his face, though the wind was not letting up. He was shivering and trembling before long, his clothes damp with seawater and sweat from the effort of fighting his nausea.

 

At least he had somewhere dry and relatively safe to stay. It had been a stroke of luck to find the safehouse unoccupied and in good condition; most of his “missions” thus far had been finding and inspecting a series of former Overwatch properties which may or may not have been on the official ledgers, used as hideouts and staging areas for its various missions. 

 

Hanzo had inspected eight of them on his way to Niigata. Five had become refuges for squatters. McCree had told him to move on and let Winston figure out how best to get the local authorities to clear them out. Two had met unfortunate ends, one from fire and the other from an earthquake. 

 

This one, however--

 

He turned the last corner. The building was on a quiet and unassuming residential street. Though it was far larger than its neighbors on either side, it was almost completely hidden behind a high cinderblock wall and a screen of enormous cedar trees that enclosed fairly large concrete patios that ran alongside three of the safehouse’s sides, one of which took up nearly as much space as the safehouse itself. The concrete was cracking where it was not covered in a thick layer of needles and leaves, the outer walls and windows were grimy, and the roof had lost some of its tiles, but Hanzo had been surprised at its nearly untouched, unlooted interior, a thick layer of dust the main sign of its nearly four-year hibernation. 

 

It had clearly been a rather large offshoot of Watchpoint: Niigata, with room for thirty agents, even if they would have kept rather close quarters with four to six in a room, only two bathrooms, and a relatively tiny kitchen for so many people. Hanzo rattled around in it like a pea in his gourd. 

 

He had already cleaned a fair amount of the place while casing out the neighbors’ reactions to his presence (if any) and waiting for the go-ahead to search the Watchpoint. It was somewhat to combat the odd isolation of being the lone resident in a place clearly meant for so many more. And it was somewhat to vent his frustration and anxiety after-

 

“This is Agent McCree. Your daily report, Shimada.”

 

Hanzo opened the small side gate silently, feeling the the skin of his stubs sting as it rubbed against his prosthetics, a consequence of the wet journey. He would have to sleep with them off tonight lest inflammation set in.

 

The annoyance of being so vulnerable plus his earlier suspicion of the reasoning behind McCree’s choice of transportation left him in a bitter mood, and he refused to answer McCree until he was well-settled.

 

“Shimada. Report.” 

 

Hanzo ignored the voice in his ear as he made a slow perimeter check, Stormbow out and eyes skinned for any disturbance in the leaf litter or the building itself that would betray an intruder. Then, just as slowly, he edged through the back door that opened into the dining area and open kitchen, listening with stilled breath as he made his way through the ground floor and then the basement, checking each individual room. It was paranoia mixed with spite that made him so thorough, even as the cowboy repeated his call incessantly every sixty seconds.

 

Finally Hanzo could delay no longer. He climbed the steps out of the basement and went to the kitchen. The sun was setting outside, and the screen of cedars meant the safehouse was thrown into shadow far earlier than one might expect. He would not risk lights, but he did throw open a dust-caked window to let air and light in as he set a kettle on the electric stove and withdrew a pre-prepared bentō from the clunky refrigerator. He pulled a chair from the dining area into the kitchen, the rest still stacked in a corner alongside the disassembled tables, and sat down next to the stove with a heavy sigh as he snapped the disposable chopsticks apart. He toyed with the idea of eating first and forcing the cowboy to wait, but the last time he had ignored the cowboy too long, the cowboy had “left the mic on” as he went in search of both Winston and Genji, muttering to himself how distressed they would both be at Hanzo going missing or AWOL.

 

He tapped the earpiece. “Shimada here. I have returned to base and completed my security sweep. I can now report.”

 

“‘Bout time,” the cowboy huffed. “Alright, then Shimada, what did you get up to today?” 

 

Hanzo fought down a sigh before he launched into a detailed description of the day’s activities. This,  _ this _ was the worst part of his association with Overwatch: having to regurgitate all his movements once daily to his  _ handler _ , who apparently considered even the smallest detail to be Overwatch business, and all over a channel that may or may not be secure. If it was not, it would be child’s play to track down the former Shimada heir.

 

Worst of all, the cowboy seemed perfectly aware of Hanzo’s paranoia. Hanzo prodded at the unopened bentō, feeling his hunger fade and his paranoia rise as the cowboy asked him to clarify exactly  _ where _ and  _ when _ multiple times. 

 

“You left ‘bout 1100? Got t’Sado ‘bout 12? Where in Sado? When did you arrive at Watchpoint: Niigata? When did you leave? Got back around 1930, you reckon?” And on and on. At least the fool was not revealing the location of the safehouse over the channel. Or perhaps not so foolish; Hanzo could imagine that would be a step too far in the cowboy’s attempts to discomfit him.

 

But Hanzo often found ways to return the favor.

 

“And so, uh, that cleanin’ bot--what exactly did they do with it?”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow, eyes focusing on the long and deepening shadows as the light coming through the window failed. “They charged it through the wall with the induction coils.”

 

“I know that. For what purpose?”

 

“To use the cleaning bot to access the servers.” There was silence on the other end of the channel. Hanzo smiled slightly. The cowboy usually asked for clarification to annoy him, and avoided asking when he actually needed clarification. 

 

“How?” 

 

“I do not understand.”

 

Something clicked on the cowboy’s end. A lighter, perhaps. “How did they use the bot to access the server?” he finally asked. Hanzo’s smile grew.

 

“Did Agent Winston not explain it to you?” 

 

“He’s a busy ape,” replied the cowboy shortly. “Now I’m wonderin’ if you actually understood what was goin’ on or just wingin’ it.” 

 

The kettle whistled on the stove. Hanzo held in a hiss and a groan as he stood to retrieve it and pour some water into one of the mugs he’d found in the cabinets. He took this time, swishing the water around to warm the mug before tossing the water out into the sink and refilling it. He settled back into the chair to allow it to cool a little before adding the tea.

 

“They charged the bot with the induction charger.” 

 

“I know that, get to the point.”

 

“The bot powered on and began its usual cleaning cycle.” 

 

He waited.

 

“And?”

 

“When it realized it was low on cleaning fluid, it tried to contact the cleaning staff.” 

 

The other end was silent for a few moments. Then the cowboy ground out, “So did it--open the door?”

 

Hanzo allowed himself to chuckle dryly. “Without power? And would Overwatch be foolish enough to give a cleaning bot authorization to allow access to a Watchpoint’s central servers?”

 

“Then how, Shimada?” The cowboy’s voice was almost a growl. He did not appreciate any smugness from Hanzo. Hanzo, for his part, was tired and still chilled from the ocean and the wind, and was therefore already ready for the game to end.

 

“The wifi.” 

 

“Come again?”

 

“It tried to connect to the Watchpoint’s wifi. When it could not detect it, it searched for any open network, because how could there be an unauthorized open network in range of the server room so deep within the base? The perpetrators merely had to provide an open wifi signal, wait for the bot to connect, and then hijack it.”

 

There was a burst of noise on the other end, a forceful exhale. Hanzo could imagine a puff of smoke winding through the air. He wrinkled his nose. “Clever,” the cowboy mused.

 

“As I said earlier,” Hanzo deadpanned. He heard a sniff.

 

“By the way, Shimada, I was readin’ up on Sado earlier. Not a popular place now, is it?” 

 

Hanzo knitted his eyebrows together. “I do not know. I do not know this region well.” 

 

“Well, I was wonderin’ how you liked it. Seems like your kinda place, t’be honest.” Hanzo suppressed a snort, thinking back on the large yet lonely island. The cowboy had had to send the accursed dinghy because the island had become so depopulated in the wake of the Omnic Crisis that it only had ferry service once every two weeks. It was isolated, yes, but there was such a thing as  _ too _ isolated. Getting his arrows’ components and training equipment there would be a constant nightmare. 

 

He stood again to put the tea leaves and strainer in the mug, his prosthetics catching on the irritated skin of his stubs. He grimaced as he hobbled the short distance to the counter. “It was--not to my taste,” he muttered. 

 

The cowboy chuckled. Darkly. Hanzo felt his hackles rise a bit. “Well, that would be part of the reason it’d suit you. It used t’be a popular place t’send exiles. Political figures, poets that said the wrong thing to the wrong people. Criminals.” 

 

Hanzo lowered his hands to his sides, staring at the mug without seeing.

 

“Even had a gold mine for the criminal element t’find some good, backbreaking work while staying nice and far away from everyone.” The cowboy paused. “Perfect for you, right?” 

 

Hanzo did not reply.

 

“That’ll be all for today, Shimada.” 

 

And the connection went dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> McCree.
> 
> A nice standard mission for Hanzo. It's all set-up, I swear.


	4. An Insufficient Amount of Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that I have changed the Archive Warning to include Graphic Depictions of Violence. This is the first chapter that earns both that and the Mature rating, so be warned!

Time was something Hanzo usually had plenty of. There were short bursts of critical timing, of course, in the last few moments before terminating a target or in taking advantage of the perfect opportunity, but for ten years the amount of time he had was excessive. He had found, however, that the problematic periods where there was _far too much_ and _far too little_ often coincided.

 

The former was easy enough to remedy if he was secure and there was plenty of liquor close by.

 

The latter was often a struggle to overcome, especially when it was directly preceded by the former.

 

The insistent _beep beep beep beep_ of the comm dragged him out from under the heavy weight of unnatural, blissfully dreamless sleep, his bloodshot eyes opening slowly and blearily. Each _beep_ sent a small but sharp spike of pain through his head before it fell back into the aching pool gathered at the base of his skull.

 

He rolled over in the small bunk, letting out a dispirited, growling moan as he reached a hand out into the dark of the basement room. Thankfully, the comm was where he usually left it on the floor next to the bunks. He blinked as the bright screen came on, flashing an incoming call notification. Withdrawing the earpiece from its port, he haphazardly stuffed it in his ear as he cleared his throat and mumbled a few curses to simultaneously warm his voice up and alleviate the annoyance of being woken into a hangover.

 

“Shimada here,” he said with only a faint rasp.

 

“McCree. Sleep well, Shimada?”

 

Hanzo glanced at the clock in the comm screen’s corner. It was just after six; he would usually be up and starting his morning exercises. The late night had pushed back his schedule a bit, it seemed.

 

He wondered, briefly, what kind of night the cowboy thought he had had in the wake of how the daily report ended, but he clamped down on that train of thought. The question was obviously insincere, and therefore rhetorical. He merely waited to see how much time the cowboy felt like wasting today. Surprisingly, he got right to the point.

 

“Athena thinks she’s uncovered who broke into the Watchpoint. She’s been crunchin’ the data she got from the bot all night, and the hacking program led her to a faction of the Yoneyama, there in Niigata. You familiar with ‘em?”

 

Hanzo nodded distractedly for a moment before remembering himself. Cursing his sluggishness, he answered, “Yes. They were once affiliated with the Shimada-gumi. They cut ties some time ago, claiming to be reorienting themselves in a more legitimate direction.”

 

“Were they?”

 

“No. They were merely distancing themselves from the Shimada so as not to be caught up in the collapse of the empire.”

 

“Well, they seem t’be gearin’ up t’re-enter the information trade. We need t’know exactly what they got, so we’re inbound.  We’ll be arrivin’ about 2100 local, and Winston and Athena’ll be drawin’ up the attack plan on the way, so they’ll be needin’ some eyes on the ground. I’m sendin’ the location of the data now, so giddy on up and get goin’. McCree out.”

 

Hanzo lay back, staring at the metal bands that supported the next bunk up. This was a major change of pace. For the last six weeks, he had been given his assignments days if not weeks in advance.

 

Groaning, he sat up and grabbed onto the metal frame of the bunkbed as he slowly lowered himself over the edge of the bed in search for his prosthetics. He did not distinctly remember taking them off, but he was thankful that it had not slipped his mind. Hangovers paired with chaffed and inflamed stubs were something he had dealt with far too often in the past, and he was not eager to repeat the experience. He located first one, then the other, and stowed them in his lap along with the comm before shuffling backwards with his hands to the locked door. The comm chimed softly, but he ignored it. He could do nothing without his prosthetics, and the salty residue from the seawater had to be washed out before he could put them on.

 

He held his breath and listened hard through the blood pounding in his ears as he silently unbolted the door and swung it open a bare centimeter. Without his prosthetics, he was capable of nothing less than stringent and overexacting vigilance until he could get them back on again.

 

Hearing nothing, he dragged himself down the hall from the barrack to the communal bathroom as quickly as his paranoia allowed, not daring to turn on any lights despite being in the basement. He made his way entirely by feel, even as he threw off his _kyudo-gi_ and boxers, grabbed a bar of soap off the counter by the sinks, dragged himself into one of the three shower stalls, and turned on a strong stream of water. His paranoia spiked as the loud spattering stream echoed off the tile walls and floor, forcing him to keep his breathing in check with slow and practiced breaths in and out. He turned each prosthetic every which way as he soaped them up and rinsed them off. If he had had the time, he would have reapplied the sealant that warded off corrosion, but the cowboy had seemed insistent that he leave immediately.

 

If that was what he meant by _giddy on up_.

 

When he was as reasonably sure they were clean as he could tell in the dark, he gave himself a perfunctory cleaning before shutting off the water and dragging himself over to retrieve the small threadbare towel he traveled with from off the counter, using it to dry out the sockets on the prosthetics before drying himself with the damp cloth as best he could. He did not bother to try to dry his hair with it, wrapping his _kyudo-gi_ around it instead.

 

He returned to the barrack, his arms and chest burning slightly from the fairly unfamiliar exercise, checking the room before he bolted himself in once more. Only then, drying his stubs with the blanket from the bunk as he waited for the residual moisture in his prosthetics to evaporate, did he turn his attention to the comm.

 

The suspected location of the data was a warehouse in an industrial area on the northeastern edge of Niigata City, not too far from the airport. That was a stroke of luck for Hanzo; he would not have to travel as far.  He studied the map quickly, zooming in until the buildings turned into 3D renderings so he would identify possible spots for surveillance. He frowned as he considered. His usual apparel, though favored for battle, would stick out too much in an area where so few civilians would be out and about; either they would be at their workplace or hopelessly lost on their way elsewhere. He had few other clothes with him, but he could cobble up something that looked as if he was a light industry worker or a low-level administrator or manager. He took some dark blue coveralls and a green long-sleeve button-up shirt out of his pack, which sat close to the bunk alongside the cello case that concealed Storm Bow and his arrows.

 

He ran his fingers through the sockets on his prosthetics and, satisfied, drew them over his stubs, wincing as the nanocarbon fasteners grabbed onto the metal disks that were screwed directly into the remains of the tibiae and fibulae in his stubs. There was a tingling sensation as the electrodes made contact with the nerve endings around his knees and calibrated themselves. Both prosthetics whirred softly as his metallic toes and ankles flexed by themselves. Finally he stood and rocked back and forth on his feet and gave a few test jumps.

 

Everything went much quicker after that.

 

He dressed rapidly, pausing briefly as he put his hair in a relaxed ponytail with a hairtie, his fingers combing through the long strands thoughtfully. Afterwards, he filled a couple of water bottles in the bathroom and stashed them in some of the coverall’s enormous, deep pockets and packed a spare set of his usual gear into a compartment of the instrument case, folding the _kyudo-gi_ and _hakama_ into a surprisingly small bundle before checking both Storm Bow and his supply of arrows. Satisfied, he fastened the quick-release latches and slung the case onto his back and headed upstairs.

 

He would forego breakfast in deference to the time he had wasted cleaning his prosthetics, stopping only to find a piece of paper and scribble down a few words and to boil some water to throw along with a couple of teabags into a thermos that also disappeared into a deep pocket. It would be strong and bitter by the time he was in a position to drink it, but he would need the caffeine if nothing else. He drank directly from the tap to hydrate himself and take the edge off his headache before he draped his rain poncho over himself and the instrument case and headed out.

 

He went by train, but it took some time to get to, not the closest station, but the next station over so as to mislead anyone who might be tracking the alias whose bank card he used to pay for the ticket. He settled in one corner of the carriage, eyes idly drifting from one entrance to the other, sweeping over the rapidly passing outside world as they went.

 

The vestiges of yesterday’s storm left the sky thickly overcast with a pronounced threat of rainfall hanging in the air. Very little sunlight was making it through the clouds, which was all the better for Hanzo. It would make it easier to stake out the warehouse without being spotted. But, most importantly, the air was sticky and stale because it was nearly windless.

 

He got off the train a stop early, in a mainly residential area with closely-packed houses and apartment buildings. He had barely exited the station when the earpiece beeped and the heavy drawl erupted in his ear. “McCree here. I see you’re gettin’ close.”

 

Hanzo withdrew the thermos, impatiently fished out the teabags and tossed them into a nearby waste receptacle, and chugged the dark brown drink in a few gulps, wincing as the slightly-too-hot liquid burned in his throat but eager for the caffeine boost to help him with the cowboy. He wished there was time for coffee before he subtly poked at the comm in his pocket. “Shimada. My ETA is approximately 45 minutes.”

 

The cowboy tsked over the comm. “Bit slow.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “I have identified several possible surveillance points around the target, but I am unsure what to focus on. Is there an attack plan, even a preliminary one?”

 

“Naw. We’re not even in the air yet, but we will be in an hour or so. In the meantime, might as well put you t’good use. Plan on a perimeter check three blocks around the target, then go in and identify the main routes in and out. We’ll likely be usin’ the ballpark three hundred meters t’the north as a landin’ pad, so keep that in mind. I’ll let you know about any changes. McCree out.”

 

Hanzo shook his head slightly as he made his way down the lightly trafficked street, passing by a group of giggling children on their way to school. The lack of planning during this rush to arms was disturbing. Any plan they devised while literally on the fly was far likelier to fail, which made his own surveillance all the more important if everything went to hell and they had to make a hasty retreat.

 

And just who were “they”? It sounded like the cowboy was coming, and Winston was a solid maybe, but other than that--

 

A wave of anxiety rose in his chest at the thought that Genji might be coming, but he fought it back down to a clump of cold dread that sat in the base of his chest. He wished there had been time this morning for an attempt at meditation. Rebalancing his mind after a night of drinking would have been helpful in fending off his brother’s ghostly presence in the back of his mind, or at least keep the headache from getting worse from his preoccupation.

 

His surroundings gradually transitioned from residential to industrial, rows of long warehouses with high, windowless walls and surrounded with chainlink fences replacing the houses and small stores. He soon came to the general neighborhood of the target. The streets here were long and straight, and even three blocks away Hanzo could easily see the blue painted walls of the target. They belonged to a warehouse that stuck up above its neighbors, but only by a single story. Huge tinted windows lined the top floor, staring out over the rooftops like dull eyes on this overcast day.

 

He made a slow circuit of the neighborhood, digging out the paper he’d brought along so he could pretend to glance at it repeatedly, mumbling to himself as he looked down sidestreets and narrow alleyways that crisscrossed the main blocks, noting that several were not on the comm’s map.

 

In the wake of the Omnic Crisis, city planning had taken a backseat to the ever-shifting needs of hordes of displaced people fleeing the fighting in the north of the country. The online maps were still playing catchup to the various impromptu backways that people had carved into the cityscape while searching for housing and employment. Satellite images helped, but weren’t perfect. Niigata had been spared the worst of the humanitarian crisis produced by the mass influx of internally displaced refugees (mostly by being a tad too far north and partially because of its position facing the Sea of Japan and its gigantic Omnic resident), but enough had sought to avoid the overcrowded southern coast of Honshu that it had not escaped unscathed.

 

At least the constant threat of Omnic attack meant that people had been reluctant to settle too close to valuable industrial targets. Hanzo had arrived in the area just after rush hour ended, and almost everyone seemed to be going about their workdays; some people were gathered in the workyards in front or to the side of the warehouses, calling out to each other as they moved inventory around, but otherwise the streets were mostly silent. No schoolchildren late to school, no neighbors chatting with each other, no one walking to or from the store to do their shopping. All the better for the illegal paramilitary organization about to drop in. He ducked into particularly sheltered alleys every-so-often to take out the comm and update the map, but he met almost no one.

 

He completed his circuit in about an hour without incident, and given that the cowboy had not contacted him, moved in to investigate the building more closely, choosing his route carefully. The warehouse sat in the middle of its small block, flanked on either side by smaller warehouses that seemed to have been renovated into vacant officespace. From outward appearances, it was perfectly ordinary and possibly abandoned from the look of the unkempt workyard and the tall weeds sprouting around the chainlink fence posts, and there were no security drones hovering around the perimeter or above the large main entrance and two side entrances. The only other point of entry, from what he could tell, was a fire escape that hung off one side of the building from the top floor.

 

Hanzo circled it on three sides of the block, keeping an eye out for any more unmapped alleys and finding two that seemed to lead directly towards it. He deliberately did not complete the full circuit, heading instead for his chosen surveillance point, looking up and down from his paper as if finding his destination at last: the sole residential building on this street, a five-story apartment building that was the only one that stood taller than the target warehouse. It had a flat roof that did not seem to have any access from the interior or exterior of the building from what Hanzo could tell from the satellite photos on the comm.

 

An unmapped alley led alongside the building, thrown into shadow by several small trees and the building next door. Hanzo listened intently to his surroundings as he shrugged off the poncho and instrument case, flipping open a small compartment on its belly to reveal clawed attachments that he slid into place on his prosthetic feet with two subdued _clicks_. There did not seem to be anyone around, and the wall of the next door building was blank. Slinging the case and poncho back onto his back and checking once more for anyone watching, he got a small running start and climbed straight up the side of the apartment building, his clawed feet digging lightly yet sturdily into the siding. He clambered onto the roof with little fanfare and without hearing any shouts of surprise. He peeked over the edge and scanned the area below for any prying eyes, but found none.

 

The flat top of the apartment building was covered in dark photovoltaic roofing, like most of the surrounding structures. It was a solid yet slick surface, and Hanzo moved carefully until the blue warehouse came into view almost a block away. He dropped onto his stomach, carefully removing his poncho and instrument case once more and laying them to one side. He opened up the case and fished out binoculars and a small plastic box from an interior compartment to one side of Storm Bow. He scanned the exterior of the warehouse with the binoculars. It was a better vantage point than he had anticipated--even good portions of both alleys were visible from here. He then switched the binoculars to infrared to search for any security drone heat signatures and found none.

 

The earpiece beeped in his ear again.

 

“McCree. Report, Shimada.”

 

He tapped at it before replying, “Shimada. I have completed my initial reconnaissance.” He gave a short but detailed explanation of his findings thus far as he withdrew the comm and sent the updated map to the cowboy. “I am about to perform a flyby. I will stream the video to you and Athena.”

 

“Go ahead.”

 

Hanzo cracked open the plastic box and withdrew the tiny four-propeller minidrone. It was barely ten centimeters across, with a minuscule camera lens poking out from one side. Hanzo opened the remote control app on the comm, a green light flashing to indicate that the Faraday generator had recharged the battery while he had been walking. The minidrone’s propellers spun up and it lifted into the air with a quiet yet shrill buzzing sound.

 

Under the occasional direction of the cowboy, Hanzo steered the drone around the warehouse, keeping a healthy distance to avoid setting off any infrared proximity detectors. There was little more to be seen from the air; Hanzo had already found all the entrances and the two unmapped alleys.

 

“Well, looks like there’s two alleys here that weren’ on the map. That complicates things.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips.

 

The minidrone did catch definite proof of habitation, however: one of the side entrance doors swung open to reveal a rather fashionably dressed young woman, who stepped outside to smoke and talk on her phone loudly enough for her voice to carry to the drone hovering 50 meters above, if barely. Most tellingly, her fitted jacket was a distinct pattern of green and white, the Yoneyama colors.

 

Soon after, the cowboy left the commlink “t’see what y’all think”, apparently addressing a larger audience than Hanzo realized he had.

 

Hanzo steered the minidrone off to return to him in a very roundabout way, landing it on a rooftop that was comfortably far off yet in clear sight of his perch so he could monitor it for an hour or so for any apparent attempts to locate and seize it. He would do the same with at least two other rooftops before he brought it back to him. He carefully unloaded Storm Bow and his arrows, keeping both within arm’s reach as he settled down with the binoculars to keep a close eye for any more activity. It was barely after ten; it would be at around eleven more hours before the cowboy arrived with whomever was coming with him.

 

Time passed slowly, as it often did while he watched nothing happen. Stakeouts were strangely taxing for Hanzo--his mind would often wander, thinking about future plans, current worries, and past regrets before he yanked it back to the task at hand like a cruel dog owner. Today past regrets dominated his thoughts, the painful reminiscing prompted by the cowboy’s parting shot the night before and the spectre of possibly seeing Genji again resurfacing at last now that he had nothing better to occupy himself with and no sake to rebury them where they belonged.

 

Genji--

 

He had hated stakeouts. Most of the other _yakuza_ clans were amazed at how hands-on the leadership of the Shimada-gumi insisted on being. Those that were not were aware of the family legacy, and how it was _only_ family that was capable of wielding it. Assassinations that required a certain level of finesse, of style, could only be accomplished by a Shimada of the main line, and while most assassinations required nothing more than a bullet, there would always be a market for the kind of death preceded by a shouted incantation and an answering dragon’s roar.

 

So the brothers had found themselves on more than one rooftop, in more than one hotel room, in more than one darkened, narrow street, waiting. Hanzo had learned the trade from their mother. By the time Genji had earned the presence of his dragon, their mother trusted enough in Hanzo to leave all but the first lesson to him.

 

_The austere room is uncomfortable to look at, much less to sit in. Pale, moth-eaten sheets, peeling wallpaper, and carpeting that seems ready to tear just from being stepped on. It should have been much more of a chore to be here, but it wasn’t. Not with Genji._

 

_He is sitting on the king-sized bed, tapping at his phone. He is supposed to be the one on watch, the one tasked with completing every step--but he is much better at finding interesting shit online than Hanzo, and this job is dragging on. The only thing keeping Hanzo’s spirits up as he stares through the binoculars at the drab office building across the street is the thought of the journey home, when he will scroll through the videos and posts and websites Genji has favorited and queued for his enjoyment. He’ll cringe and wince and make snide comments about most of it, surely, but every once in a while, he’ll laugh, and Genji will laugh with him, pleased to have found something to cheer up his dour sibling._

 

_Genji stands up from the bed and rushes to his side, gesturing wildly at the screen, lips moving soundlessly. Hanzo glances at his brother for just a moment with an exaggerated frown. He says something in reply, just as silently, something--something sarcastic, that makes Genji throw his head back and laugh. Hanzo turns back to watch the building again and catches a glimpse of their victim disappearing inside. He rises, admonishing his brother with words that are cruel on the surface but hold no real venom. Genji rolls his eyes with a smirk. He pats his phone almost lovingly before he pockets it. He found some really funny shit today. He can’t wait for Hanzo to see it all._

 

Hanzo was distracted enough--again--that he almost missed the changing of the guard. A flicker of green, too dark a shade to match his brother’s unfortunate dye job but close enough to snap him back into the present, barely caught his eye before the group emerging from the side entrance mixed with the group coming up from both of the alleys, confusing their numbers. As it was, Hanzo was able to get a count of everyone before the first group waved goodbye as they headed down the alleys while the second group filtered slowly into the warehouse. Fifteen came out, and fifteen went in. Hanzo noted the time--just before 1400. Offset just enough from normal work hours to avoid too many people being on the street to notice everyone at the supposedly empty warehouse.

 

He waited to see if any of the morning shift of guards doubled back to investigate the minidrone before he sent a typed message to the cowboy. If the Yoneyama were sticking to a regular schedule, the next shift might be around 2200, and it might be worth the effort for the cowboy to try to arrive a little sooner or delay and come a little later; launching an attack when reinforcements were already on the way would be inconvenient at best.

 

The cowboy did not send a reply, so Hanzo went back to watching, doggedly avoiding any more reminiscing.

 

The sky remained overcast as the day went on, but it was not long until he felt his the pain in his head increase along with a prickling in the skin of his face, neck, and ears that announced a light sunburn. He cursed softly, thinking of the acetylene torch from the day before. He would have gotten a fair amount of UV exposure from it, and now the unseen sun was beating down on him through the clouds. He reluctantly draped the poncho over his head in a bid at damage control while trying to listen intently for anyone sneaking up while his peripheral vision was compromised.

 

The day wore on. Two more Yoneyama came out at different times for smoke breaks, but beyond them the warehouse was as still as ever. As the evening approached, a few workers left the surrounding properties, walking along the street in groups of two or three. Some made a beeline for the apartment building, along with a couple of pedestrians and cars from other directions. Hanzo had been expecting this, and he withdrew into the center of the rooftop for a while, waiting to see if any of the Yoneyama would use the building’s residents as cover to approach and try to kill him. The building’s front entrance banged closed a dozen times, but nobody leapt onto the roof to confront him, so he returned to his vigil.

 

The earpiece beeped again as the sun sank into view below the cloudbank just before sunset, hovering over the dark grey mass of the distant sea.

 

“Alright, Shimada,” the cowboy began without preamble, “Here’s the plan: at 2130 the team’s gonna set down in the ballpark three hundred meters north of your position. Once we’re on the ground, we’ll use the northwest alley to approach the warehouse. Your job will be t’cover the northeast alley and neutralize any reinforcements, then skedaddle when we got the objective. Any questions?”

 

“2130?” Hanzo frowned. “You believe you will be able to complete the mission before more guards arrive?” The data Overwatch was after was likely to be divided between two or three chips kept in safes or hideyholes in order to keep it safe from both physical and cyber attacks.

 

“‘Course,” said the cowboy, chuckling. “Don’ have any faith in us, Shimada?”

 

“Is the mission time critical?” asked Hanzo. “It would be better to wait an hour, perhaps two, after the shift change before striking. There is a possibility that the night shift-”

 

“Listen, Shimada, we got it covered,” cut in the cowboy sharply. “Just wait for my signal to reposition, and we’ll take care of the rest. McCree out.”

 

Hanzo glowered as the link went dead, his lips pressed into a thin white line, but he strangled his exasperation and kept watch. He withdrew the comm from his pocket and set it down in front of himself, keeping an eye on the time.

 

The sun slowly sank below the horizon, a few scattered streetlights flickering on as the sky darkened. Hanzo heard several residents of the apartment building leave again, talking excitedly as they went, but they headed in the opposite direction of the warehouse.

 

Hanzo checked the time: the team would be arriving in about thirty minutes. Nervous anticipation began to thrum through his limbs, but he kept a tight rein on it, especially when it began to mix with the dread of possibly seeing Genji soon. He found himself wondering if the cowboy would have just told him that Genji was coming from the beginning in order to maximize his anxiety. Perhaps he would say nothing in order to “protect” Genji, thinking Hanzo would hatch a plan to finish the job he’d failed ten years ago. Or maybe the cowboy was just leaving him to stew in his own uncertainty--that was a distinct possibility. His headache throbbed stubbornly.

 

Ten minutes before, Hanzo returned to the center of the roof, the warehouse obscured by the roof’s edges. He quickly stripped and redressed in his battle gear, tying his hair up with his gold ribbon, freeing his left arm, and clicking the comm onto his belt. Five minutes and he lifted his quiver and Storm Bow out of the instrument case and silently latched it closed as he slung both of them over his shoulders. He would come back for the case later.

 

2130.

 

Nothing.

 

The minutes ticked by one by one. Hanzo did not fidget as he kept watch, but he did glance over his shoulder twice in the direction of the ballpark. Finally, at 2139, the earpiece beeped. “Move into position.”

 

“Acknowledged.” Hanzo checked for anyone down in the streets and saw no one. He jumped to his feet and leapt off the edge of the building. He fell three stories onto the roof of the building next door, his prosthetics flexing as they absorbed the impact against the sturdy photovoltaic cells. He then dropped down to street level, his metal soles sounding a short _clang_ against the pavement of the sidewalk before he was off at a run, keeping out of sight of the warehouse as much as possible as he made his way to the northeast alley.

 

The alley stood dark and deserted, shunted between two long, mostly windowless depots, dimly lit by the cityglow reflected off the clouds above. Hanzo eyed the empty length carefully before he darted down it, eyes raking the buildings on either side. He scaled the wall about midway down on a building he had chosen from the drone footage, on a building that had no visible roof access. He situated himself and scanned his surroundings. The alley was narrow enough that he could cross it with a running jump if need be, and there were several ways to escape. He returned his attention to the alley and tapped his earpiece. “I am in position.”

 

“Alright, we’re comin’ in hot. Report and take down any reinforcements.”

 

“Acknowledged.” Hanzo did not expect to hear or see anything. If he were the one tasked with retrieving the data, he would have approached close enough to map the interior with sonic arrows and then cornered and interrogated guards until he extracted the location of each chip.

 

Overwatch apparently had other ideas.

 

His head whipped around at the sound of a deep, booming voice, distant but clear through the night air.

 

“We shall prove ourselves in glorious combat! GAAAAAA-” The voice was cut off by a boom mixed with the crunch of crumbling concrete and the shriek of warping metal. Hanzo could see nothing from where he was, but it sounded like something was literally smashing its way into the warehouse. Gunfire erupted, echoing among the sheer walls of the surrounding buildings, along with men and women shouting. He scowled. What were they thinking?

 

He turned back to the entrance of the alley, snatching a sonic arrow out of his quiver and letting it fly. The nanoimplants in his retinas activated in the same moment as he waited for the blue pulse of sonic energy to bloom in his vision.

 

His fears were realized. The night shift had already arrived.

 

They were converging on the alley from all directions, silent, guns drawn in one hand while they frantically signed at each other with the other, coordinating the attack.

 

Several of them charged straight into the alley, out of inexperience or stupidity.

 

Hanzo greeted them with scatter arrows. Two were enough for this first wave.

 

He tapped his earpiece.

 

“The next shift of guards has arrived. I have neutralized four of them. At least three remain outside the alley, but they are withdrawing for now.”

 

An unfamiliar voice answered, bright and cheery. “‘Ello there! You must be Hanzo! Welcome to the team, mate!”

 

Before Hanzo could demand to know who was speaking, another unknown person broke in, voice low and rough. “Torbjorn, report.”

 

Yet another. “Yeah, I’ve got some coming in on my end, too. The turret’s holding them back for now.”

 

Finally the cowboy spoke. “Well, shit. Looks like we got some busybodies comin’ t’work early.”

 

The low, rough voice. “Reinhardt, guard the main entrance. Torbjorn, Shimada, maintain your positions. McCree and Tracer, doubletime.”

 

“Shimada, how much time you reckon we got before more come?”

 

Hanzo shook his head, fuming. “They are already here.”

 

The battle was a nightmare.

 

Reinforcements had indeed arrived quickly, and the Yoneyama wasted no time in trying to both find and circumvent the defender of the alley. Hanzo, anticipating them, constantly changed position as they found alternative routes in the narrow spaces between buildings, through the workyards of the surrounding buildings, and through the buildings themselves, popping out of side entrances and back doors.

 

Some were sent through the alley itself as a distraction while the others attempted to bypass him. It was hard to tell how many succeeded in the dark, but Hanzo prevented more than thirty from proceeding any further than about two-thirds of the way. Their bodies soon littered the alley and surrounding area, a few pinned to walls by his bolts, and one that was draped over the top of a chainlink fence where it had fallen with an arrow buried in its back. His head pounded from the noise and adrenaline, and his body soon ached with the exertion of being constantly on the move, a feeling he normally associated with botched jobs that threatened his life. His heart pounded in his chest.

 

There were a few close calls. Bullets were raking up and down the buildings on either side of the alley, attempting to push him back into hiding or flush him out and some whizzing past audibly close. At one point as Hanzo repositioned himself when the bullets were coming a little too close to the mark, two Yoneyama suddenly surged onto the roof. Whether they found him by luck or design, he did not know, but both yelled when they saw him. One dropped to one knee, aiming with a heavy pistol, while the other charged forward.

 

“You dare attack the Yoneyama?!” he roared. “You shall choke on your own-” The arrowhead that slashed across his throat cut off his words, a spurt of blood spilling to the ground only to be followed by his body with a heavy thud a moment or two later. The same arrowhead sank into his companion’s forehead a split second later, snapping his head back with an audible _crack_ of vertebrae that flipped his body back off the roof.

 

Emboldened by this first direct sighting, the duo’s compatriots rushed forward to try to eliminate him, drawn by the first dead man’s yells. Even those who had erstwhile been hanging back on either side of the alley’s entrance as guards or coordinators joined in the charge.

 

Smiling slightly at their foolishness, Hanzo flanked them and allowed them to converge on his old position. He would not even have to trouble the dragons. He considered the angles, calculated the trajectory, and rained scatter arrows on the group. A few had time to scream, even fewer had time to take a few steps in an attempt to scatter and find cover, but none made it out of that dark alley.

 

Hanzo let fly his second-to-last sonic arrow, waiting for anyone to approach the alley. No one seemed to be foolish enough to try, at least for a few minutes. He glanced over his shoulder at his quiver. He had only a few arrows left, most of them scatter arrows, but he could not afford to waste them on single targets.

 

“I am low on ammunition,” he whispered into the commlink as he made his way to the edge of the roof. “I am attempting to recover some of my arrows.”

 

There had been sparse but steady chatter in his ear the entire time; from what he could discern, “Reinhardt” and “Torbjorn” had been sentries like him, holding off the Yoneyama reinforcements in the other alley and the main entrance from the street while “Tracer” and the cowboy, along with some other Overwatch agent who barked questions and orders from time to time, had been clearing and searching the warehouse.

 

The earpiece crackled. “We’re almost done. McCree, go and cover Shimada. Tracer and I will finish here.”

 

Hanzo grimaced. “There is no time. I must collect them now before more arrive.” Without waiting for a reply, he dropped to the ground and darted forward, making for the nearest corpse.

 

The attack came from above.

 

Glass shattered as windows somewhere above him exploded outwards. Hanzo tried to leap away, shielding his eyes from the flying shards as figures dropped to the ground all around him. He registered their drawn guns just before something thudded heavily across his back. He felt all his remaining arrows snap as one in his crushed quiver as he was pitched forward. He tried to scramble to his feet, but another heavy blow fell across his back, knocking the wind out of him and pressing him flat on the ground. He clutched Storm Bow in his left hand like a lifeline, the only source of comfort as pain surged through his body.

 

Someone roughly grabbed his shoulder and turned him over, his already bruised back protesting. A young man, much younger than Hanzo, stared down at him with cold hatred. His eyes flickered to Hanzo’s tattoo, along with the bow he held with a white-knuckled grip.

 

“Shimada, huh? It’s been a long time since we saw any of you here,” the young man said in a low voice. As he spoke, Hanzo looked beyond him to the four dark figures scattered behind, each leveling pistols straight at Hanzo’s chest. “We’d heard you were getting back in the business, but it seems your masters are uninterested in re-establishing the old alliance. I’ll be sure to let my bosses know. For now--” his mouth twisted into a feral grin, a sadistic look that was all the more disturbing to be resting on such a young face. “--we will send a message from the Yoneyama with your carcass.” He stepped back, clearing the way for his comrades. Almost as one, the pistols raised a minute amount as they prepared to fire.

 

Somewhere in Hanzo’s chest, something tight relaxed, sending pulses of relief through his heart. At last. This badly planned, knee-jerk of a raid had overcome all his paranoia, all his meticulous planning and cautious execution, all his stubborn adherence to duty and decorum. It was over.

 

He would die.

 

He had felt this way before. Even as he stared down the barrels of his impending doom, his mind flickered back a few months, to the open balcony overlooking the glittering lights of home, when the thin, sharp edge of death had pressed against the pulse of his veins.

 

But then death had been pulled away to be replaced with two brown eyes surrounded by necrotic flesh.

 

His grip tightened around Storm Bow.

 

“ _No._ ”

 

No.

 

No.

 

Death had been pressed up against him, reaching out to still the thunderous blasts thudding in his chest--

 

_\--no--_

 

\--and it was withdrawing, away from the heat and electricity buzzing through his left arm, the tattoo flashing in the dark. No, that was not right--it withdrew from the tiny, traitorous spark, the one that always blazed to life when he--

 

His grip tightened around Storm Bow.

 

No! There is nothing to shoot with!

 

Your bow was never anything more than a toy.

 

_A chipped blade, sodden with blood._

 

Never--never again!

 

Then think of it as a club. It was a club, at first, centuries ago.

 

_NO--!_

 

It was difficult to say what happened, exactly, when the dragons took hold. Hanzo had never found an adequate explanation. It was even harder now to explain even as his selves slid away from other, as his eyesight doubled and hearing doubled, as the blue light blinded all of his eyes and the twin dragons’ roar thundered in all of his ears.

 

Did they split him in two, he wondered, as his selves dashed to each side, each swinging Storm Bow. One of him aimed for the neck, the other for the head. Two men were cut down, blood splattering from a ruptured jugular ( _he had leapt out of the way just in time, eyes wide with fear_ ) and a skull cracking under a heavy blow ( _he had managed to deflect it so that it sideswiped his head, tearing off his ear_ ).

 

Did they share him somehow, tossing him from one to the other dozens of times a second, too fast for his human mind to process it? He flashed forward too fast to counter, both of him slicing across the eyes ( _hadn’t he done the same to him? No, he must not have, he still had his eyes_ ) before garroting them with the bowstring ( _no garrote had been necessary with his blade--it had worked much better, had been much more efficient_ ). Two more fell, their screams bubbling out ( _just as his had_ ).

 

The young man was in the middle of stepping back, his expression still transforming from feral to horrified when he both stepped up and swung, the man’s head caught between the double hammers of Storm Bow and Storm Bow. His skull cracked, the skin bulging as it struggled to contain the shards.

 

He fell to the ground like--

 

\--like a puppet with strings cut--

 

\-- _just_ \--

 

\-- _like_ \--

 

He turned, both pairs of eyes focusing as he both leapt forward. One of him swung and caught the wrist of the cowboy, slamming it against the cinderblock wall the cowboy had stumbled against as he had tried to hurriedly back away, his ridiculous gun falling from his hand. From behind, he smashed Storm Bow against the side of the cowboy’s knee. It gave way with a resounding crack, and the cowboy tumbled to the ground with a strangled cry of pain intermingled with the crunch of glass and plastic.

 

The cowboy looked up at one of him, raising his uninjured metal hand, trying to ward him off even as he brought both of Storm Bow up high to sweep down with the killing blow. The cowboy’s eyes were wide, full of fear, brown irises nearly disappeared behind the dilated pupils. He did not want to die, it seemed.

 

_He did not want to die, but it was his duty. It was his burden. He had to--_

 

No.

 

\-- _you would perform your duty to Overwatch_ \--

 

Overwatch. The cowboy was part of Overwatch. Genji had pledged his life--Hanzo’s life--to Overwatch. What was he--?

 

With a jolt like being doused in supercooled water, there was Hanzo, and Hanzo only. He stared down at the cowboy as the world snapped back into ordinary depth, ordinary sound, ordinary experience.

 

He swayed, he teetered, and fell stiffly onto his side, his instinct to catch himself completely submerged under a swell of searing, agonizing regret and guilt. It was too much. It had not mattered that it was not a sword, it was too much like last time. Ten years was insufficient, it was too close, it was too much, it was--it was--

 

The cowboy seemed frozen, sprawled on his side, his flesh hand hanging limply from his smashed wrist, his knee twisted unnaturally beneath him. His clothes were disheveled, his red cape bunched up over his shoulders, a bronze colored chest plate splattered with blood. He was staring at Hanzo, his face blank of everything but fear and astonishment.

 

\--it was unacceptable to fall apart here, with enemies all around him, with an Overwatch mission in progress.

 

With the cowboy watching.

 

With a supreme effort of will, Hanzo forced the regret, the guilt, the paralyzing fear and loathing, into a cold and hard lump in his chest.

 

It would not stay that way, but it would for long enough.

 

Jerkily, robotically, his face falling into a neutral, almost slack expression, he gathered himself to his feet. The cowboy scooted back, a pained grunt escaping him as he jostled his knee and wrist. Something clinked underneath him as he moved. Hanzo glanced down and saw the the pieces of the cowboy’s smashed comm scattered beneath him, crushed as he had smashed the cowboy’s leg out from under him.

 

He tapped at his earpiece.

 

“This is Shimada. Agent McCree is injured,” he said, his voice strangely void. The cowboy narrowed his eyes.

 

“This is the medic,” said a voice. Somewhere, deep and far away, a clouded portion of Hanzo’s mind was conscious enough to register a tiny beat of annoyance at yet another unknown person. “What are his injuries?”

 

“Broken wrist and shattered knee. What is your position?”

 

“I am en-route.”

 

“No-go, Mercy. Is your position secure, Shimada?” The low, gruff voice.

 

Hanzo glanced over his shoulder to the entrance of the alley. “No. There are currently no enemies, but I do not know for how long.”

 

“Can you get McCree to the warehouse?”

 

“I believe so.”

 

“We have the chips. Mercy, meet McCree and Shimada at the warehouse. Tracer, head back to the transport and pick up everyone here. Understood?”

 

“Right-o! See you in a tic!” chirped the bright voice.

 

“Understood,” said the medic.

 

“Acknowledged,” said Hanzo. He took a step toward the cowboy.

 

He flinched and tried to reel back. “Stay the fuck away from me!” he growled.

 

Hanzo took two quick steps and slapped him across the face. “I must help you while I still can,” he said quietly, voice still abnormally void, to the cowboy’s shocked face. He grabbed the cowboy’s uninjured metal arm, the titanium cold against his flushed, fiery skin, and pulled him up. The cowboy yelped as his injured knee twisted. Hanzo ignored it as he hefted the tall and wide body onto his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He squatted to grab Storm Bow off the ground and again to collect the cowboy’s heavy revolver and broke into a slow jog down the alley towards the warehouse.

 

He focused on the burn in his thighs and back, on his wild heartbeat and deep uneven breaths as he carried the heavy load. The cold lump in his chest was threatening to burst at any moment.

 

The high blue walls of the warehouse soon came into view. Smoke billowed out of several broken windows and the wide-open door of the fire escape on the third floor. Hanzo rounded the building, searching for the cowboy’s teammates.

 

He found them gathered by one of the side entrances. If he was anywhere close to being in his right mind, he might have hesitated at the veritable mountain of grey steel shaped into a vaguely human form, but as it was, with his mind running only the most basic and necessary functions as it struggled to delay the inevitable, he merely trotted up to it. Beside it were three more people, a man who would have been intimidating if he were not standing next to the mountain, face obscured with a visor that glowed a dull red in the city night. Another was a man who was should have been diminutive, barely standing above Hanzo’s waist yet was bulky with corded muscle. Hanzo distantly noted the enormous claw that served as an arm before focusing on the last person.

 

She would have looked average, just slightly shorter than him with blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail, but she was dressed in odd formfitting white armor that branched into white and gold wings from her back, all surmounting with a gold halo that circled her head. She held a white and black, subtly technological staff in one hand. She rushed forward when she caught sight of him.

 

“You are the medic?” Hanzo asked, slowing to a stop.

 

She looked him in the eye with a piercing, searching gaze that lasted far too long. He would have tensed, would have stepped back to put distance between them, but he was too busy holding back the tide of his own mind. She nodded at last. “Yes. Dr. Angela Ziegler, callsign Mercy.”

 

“Shimada Hanzo,” he replied without feeling. He squatted, and she helped him lay the cowboy on the ground. The cowboy’s eyes were clamped shut, his face blanched and pale.

 

She began inspecting his wrist. “What happened?”

 

The cold lump in his chest pulsed. Hanzo stood with a jerk.

 

The medic looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “What--?”

 

“The cowboy will explain. I must go.” Hanzo said as he dropped the cowboy’s gun to the ground and turned away.

 

“Hold up, Shimada.” The visored man stepped forward. “More of the Yoneyama--”

 

“I am not so easy a target,” interrupted Hanzo with no heat. “Farewell.”

 

With a running start, he climbed straight up the side of neighboring building. Springing onto the roof, he sprinted across the roof and leapt onto the next, and the next, and the next. He merely took whichever route presented itself, reaching at random to the nearest roof or ledge, dropping to street level only to cross to the next block of buildings, focused on nothing more than his breathing, his burning legs, and the next handhold.

 

He absently noted the industrial buildings abruptly stop, the warehouses and factories sharply transitioning into commercial buildings and apartments, neon and hard light storefronts and marquees slowly brightening the streets. Bordering both districts was a small park, edged with a low hedge that was densely packed with leaves and thick branches. He dropped to street level, digging out his earpiece as he went. He gently clicked it into its port on his comm as he unclipped it from his belt and shoved it into the nearest bush, making sure to bury it as far within as possible before turning away and running silently down the deserted street, bloodshot and increasingly twitching eyes searching the marquees and storefronts.

 

He soon found one that advertised the supplies necessary to survive the night.

 

The vending machine had plenty to offer, but he immediately focused on the pink, blue, and white liter cartons of plum wine and sake lining the bottom shelf. With trembling, clumsy fingers, he withdrew a pouch full of rolled up coins from a hidden pocket, a sight as outdated as his _kyudo-gi_ and bow. The coins dropped into the slot with loud plinking sounds far out of proportion with their size, and he impatiently watched each carton fall to the bottom of the machine before inserting more. It felt like an eternity before it seemed he had enough for his purposes. He stuffed all the cartons into a plastic bag that he dug out of a nearby waste receptacle and he was back on the rooftops.

  
All the while, the cold lump in his chest was pulsating, cracking, leaking memory and despair into the pit of his stomach, straining his willpower and his strength. He had to find somewhere soon, somewhere hidden, somewhere high, somewhere where no one would see.

 

An office building, ten or twelve stories high, pre-Crisis construction with old-style solar panels arranged in neat rows on its roof, waiting to shield him from sight, no neighbors of comparable size. Perfect.

 

He scrambled up the wall, movements increasingly hesitant and unsure, his chest tightening from the effort of containing himself for just a little longer, just a little longer, just long enough to--

 

\--crawl under the raised solar panels--

 

\--hear Storm Bow and his destroyed quiver clatter to the ground--

 

\--collapse--

 

\--rip open the first liter carton--

 

\--and drink and drink and _drink and drink and drink_ \--

 

\--and hold on just a little longer, just a little longer, until the blackout took him, and whatever the cold lump did to him when it finally burst could be safely hidden in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *smiles* 
> 
> So, a brief summary of this chapter would be: I take too much pleasure in describing Hanzo's "workplace", action scenes are haaaard, and McCree gets comeuppance? Too much comeuppance? Probably too much.
> 
> Sorry for the long wait on this one! Action scenes are hard. But I have finished "Always With Me," so this fic is now my main focus, so updates should be more forthcoming. Thank you for your patience! 
> 
> Special thanks to [couldbedauntless](http://archiveofourown.org/users/couldbedauntless/pseuds/couldbedauntless) for acquainting me with Japan's liquor supply! I'm from Utah, where you can only get hard liquor from a few state-run stores, so it was quite the eye-opener! I mean, vending machines! VENDING MACHINES.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Whether you did or not, thanks for reading!!!
> 
> Edit (22/11/2017): [Chromatocloo](https://chromatocloo.tumblr.com) has drawn two beautiful comics of this chapter's climatic scene: [Part 1](https://chromatocloo.tumblr.com/post/167350780906/doodles-based-on-this-chapter-of-the-amazing) and [Part 2](https://chromatocloo.tumblr.com/post/167602441386/follow-up-to-this-%CA%95-%E1%B4%A5-%CA%94-more-doodles-based-on). It's amazing, thank you so much for drawing it!!!


	5. Recovery

Slowly, slowly, light and pain tugged Hanzo out of the darkness. The light seemed to be everywhere, harsh and red, while the pain was centered in dozens of pinpricks that jabbed at his consciousness as it was drawn to the surface like blood to a bruise.

 

Instinct was the first to grab hold of his physical body, and while the light remained almost constant, the pricks of pain wavered and protested under the barest of breezes as he rolled his head back and forth. He winced as his hair fell and dragged across his face, right across the pricks. He felt them reluctantly, stickily fall away and he sighed in relief, but wrinkled his nose at the sharp, antiseptic smell of his own breath that worked its way out of his parched throat.

 

He did not know how long it was before he was aware enough to attempt to open his eyes. The first few efforts sent stabbing pain through his eyes and head, and he had to wait longer before he realized his right eye simply refused to open. Finally, cracking open his left, he could see the clear blue sky and the blinding glare of the sun above.

 

He groaned as he made the connection. Slowly and clumsily he raised a hand to his face and hissed as pain blossomed under the pads of his fingers. He lightly traced the blisters down his forehead, over his closed eye, down his cheeks and neck and chest. Everywhere his skin was exposed.

 

He glared half-heartedly at the bank of solar panels immediately to his side. At some point during his blackout, he must have collapsed and lost consciousness out in the open. Who knew how long he had been laying there, his already lightly sunburned skin baking in the sun.

 

As soon as he was able, he dragged himself back into the shade, rolling onto his right side and dragging himself with his unburnt arm. Even these slight movements were enough to roil his stomach and send knives and daggers through his head and neck.

 

The slight relief when the blisters were no longer in the sun was minute yet welcome.

 

He flopped onto his back once more, wincing as the undoubtedly deep bruises protested. He stared with his one eye at the underside of the solar panels, crisscrossed with a few wires and metal rods in the ambient light. He cautiously probed his mind, looking for any recollection of the past few--hours? Days? It would be hard to tell until he found a calendar.

 

His chest tightened with anxiety, and he closed his eye tight against the wave of emotional pain, guilt, disgust, self-directed anger, but it was tolerable.

 

Now all that was left to do was wait for sunset and then see what else had been lost in the breakdown.

 

The hours passed slowly, measured with the throbbing of his blisters, his ever-increasing thirst, and the changing angle of the sunlight. The physical pain was welcome; it was something to center on, something to grasp to keep him from falling too deep into his own head. At times he sat up and idly traced his fingers over his skin, trying to find where the damage was greatest. There was a constellation of white, red, and grey blisters spread across the deep blue scales of his tattoo. He grimaced when he realized he was covered with the dust and grime that had collected on the rooftop from storms and the wind. It was undoubtedly aggravating his blisters, causing them to swell more than they otherwise would have.

 

The biggest blister seemed to be just over his right eye, forcing it closed. It was a great inconvenience--he had apparently lain there on the rooftop for however long without being discovered, but as the day went on and the alcohol wore off and he breathed and centered and focused, his paranoia began to stir and he found himself sitting up with utmost care so he could search for his bow and feel less vulnerable.

 

Storm Bow lay not too far from him. On one side of it was the plastic bag, with two more blue cartons of sake tucked inside. Hanzo throttled the surge of thirst at the sight of them. He was not sure just how dehydrated he was, but his mouth was bone dry, his skin was tight, and his muscles were threatening to cramp, so it would not be wise to consume even the least amount of alcohol.

 

On the other side lay his destroyed quiver. It provided a way to pass the time. Every single arrow within had been snapped, so he busied himself with disassembling and salvaging the arrowheads and fletching, tossing each component into the bag with the sake and ignoring the pain that accompanied each movement, whether from his blisters or the headache of his hangover and dehydration. He was thankful that the plastic seemed thick enough to resist the points of the arrowheads, but he would still have to be careful to avoid them tearing it apart from within.

 

The rest of the day passed quickly. The sun was already settling over the horizon out of sight behind the small grove of skyscrapers that marked Niigata’s city center, to be replaced by the sea of white and yellow lights in the great swath of urbanization. As the twilight deepened, Hanzo slowly got to his metal feet, testing his mobility carefully. His stubs were mercifully unswollen, but his left arm burned at even the slightest movement, along with the deep bruises on his back. He was technically fully mobile, however.

 

He was sure, however, that he would stick out like a sore thumb when he descended from his high tower. His blisters aside, his clothes were ruffled and dingy with roof grime, so he elected to wait a few hours more for the streets to clear before he went in search of hydration.

 

And to confirm that Overwatch had discharged him.

 

He had not allowed himself to think too deeply about the battle. It felt far too close, like it could set him off again if he remembered too many details about the dragons and--

 

But he could not ignore the probable consequences of attacking the cowboy. Overwatch had had little to no reason to trust him, having done so at the behest of someone he had already killed--no, not killed. Even now he had to remind himself. Not killed. Only mutilated.

 

Now there was little doubt that the cowboy would use this to have him thrown out of the organization as quickly as possible. Hanzo carefully, cautiously thought back to the moment both of his selves had turned on the cowboy--Hanzo had not been fully aware of the cowboy until he was already breaking his bones, but who would believe that? Certainly not the cowboy himself, and he was his handler, and a veteran of Overwatch. His word was worth twenty times Hanzo’s, even if he had foolishly approached Hanzo from behind without making his presence known.

 

So Overwatch would cut all ties, would surely have done so already. It would be childishly easy. All they had to do was recover or remotely erase the comm. The cowboy had given Hanzo as little information as possible on Overwatch’s location. If Hanzo dug into the tidbits of info the cowboy had let drop, he probably could have narrowed it down to a region or a continent, but why bother? Genji had found him before. He could find him again easily enough if he wished to continue this ridiculous dance.

 

Perhaps attacking the cowboy the exact same way Hanzo had attacked Genji would convince him to take the simplest route at last.

 

Perhaps the cowboy himself would take matters into his own hands, after having his suspicions about Hanzo so dramatically confirmed. That would be a less acceptable turn of events; Hanzo’s life would become very difficult indeed if he was forced to kill the cowboy. Hopefully he was as talented as his cockiness and reputation as former Blackwatch implied, if it came to that.

 

Hanzo waited until the twilight completely faded before he gathered his equipment, swinging Storm Bow over his uninjured, clothed shoulder and picking up his bag.

 

Out of deference to the maintenance staff of the building, he searched for the cartons he would have used to relieve himself during his blackout, finding three. He made sure the lids were on tight and placed them carefully in the bag as well for disposal in the first waste receptacle he could find.

 

Then he crept to the waist-high parapet that surrounded the roof, draped himself over it in as comfortable a position as he could manage with his blisters and bruises, and waited for the crowds below walking among the willow-lined streets to disperse.

 

It did not take long for them to disappear. This area of the city had little in the way of nightlife, and the roving bands of office workers soon headed elsewhere and the groups of residents returning home soon filtered into their respective domiciles. It could not have been long after midnight before Hanzo carefully stretched out to try to calm his increasingly tremulous, tight muscles, swung his legs over the parapet, and began the long, careful descent. His overworked, underrested, and dehydrated muscles threatened to drop him into empty air the entire way, but he managed to get to the street before his thigh muscles especially began to cramp beyond his capacity to will them to relax.

 

He limped into the nearest narrow space he could find between buildings before collapsing and doing his best to stretch them out once more, which took some time. He left the three piss cartons in a trashcan he found there before he began searching for another vending machine, one with sports drinks. He knew from previous experience that his stomach would likely not accept plain water--something with sugar and electrolytes would be necessary to give him a fighting chance at keeping it all down.

 

Ironically, he found what he was looking for next to the machine where he had bought all his plum wine and sake. If he had been more lucid, he would have thought to kill two birds with one stone before he blacked out. More coins _plinkplinked_ , and soon he skulked off into another narrow space where he could rest his back against a solid wall while he forced himself to drink slowly.

 

His stomach did put up a strong fight despite the sports drinks, but he patiently kept at it, taking a tiny sip every couple of breaths, the small mouthfuls slowly relieving his parched throat. The first bottle took ages to empty, but it was all it took for his stomach to relax, and he cautiously gulped down the second bottle much faster, and when its contents failed to reappear, he finished off a large protein shake with little trouble. He stopped himself then, to avoid overloading himself. In his state, overhydration was as much a danger as dehydration.

 

It was time to confirm Overwatch’s response to his actions.

 

The park was easy to find, the hedge easier still. He paused in the shadows of a small grove of willows that marked the end of the street, scanning the area with his one good eye. He chided himself for leaving the comm in a portion of the hedge so far from cover. Then he mentally shrugged. He had no arrows; Storm Bow was next to useless, his lack of depth perception aside. Who knew if Hanzo was capable of using it as he had against the Yoneyama and the cowboy so soon? Twice separated by ten years had nearly destroyed him.

 

It was not worth the risk. Overwatch would certainly have nothing more to do with him. Confirming it was unnecessary.

 

He had half-turned away when his fastidious nature reared its head.

 

You went to the clan elders, he reminded himself. You dissolved your allegiance in person, gave them a chance to stop and destroy you. You did not slink away into the shadows then, and you will not now.

 

You owe Genji enough to extend his comrades the same courtesy.

 

A low growl made its way out of his throat, but he half-heartedly scanned his surroundings one last time before he strode out into the open, making straight for the bush that he had thrust the comm into.

 

He reached it with his brains still tucked inside his skull, which surprised him slightly. He crouched and peered through the leaves, reaching inside to pull aside thick branches. He spotted the comm and pulled it out, retreating immediately down another street, turning a couple of corners and darting down an alleyway before he found another sheltered spot and inspected it.

 

To his surprise, it was still powered on. It appeared that enough light had filtered through the bush to keep the battery partially charged, barely. The comm was locked, however, which was standard procedure from what he remembered of Winston’s long-winded explanation of its functions and capabilities when he had first received it.

 

Sighing, he turned the comm over a couple of times in his hands. He wished that it had been remotely erased or had disappeared. That would have been an effective enough message. That it was not likely meant Overwatch had a few parting shots to deliver before cutting ties, perhaps even an admonishment from Genji, which was the last thing both his pride and his shame wanted to hear at that moment.

 

He pressed his palm against the screen, beginning the unlocking process. It took a few minutes; there was a combination of biometric scans and codephrases to get through if the comm was left inactive for a certain period of time. Hanzo had had to memorize the whole process; the comm gave no prompts whatsoever, and scanning his palm and fingerprints and whispering the codephrases in the correct order was a passcode in itself.

 

Finally, the comm screen flashed white, and Athena’s stylized ‘A’ logo appeared.

 

“Shimada? You readin’ me?”

 

Hanzo nearly dropped the comm and, fastidious devotion to duty be damned, almost walked away into the night.

 

As it was, he did not immediately disappear, but he did move to a more defensible position. He was in an alcove overshadowed by a building three or four stories tall. He scaled the side, his muscles still threatening to cramp despite having drunk so much water, and hoisted himself onto the slanted roof, all the while looking for any flash of red and listening for the report of a heavy revolver. He withdrew from the edge. There were no buildings that were terribly close overlooking the roof. It would do for now.

 

Hanzo willed his chest to untighten as he tried to find his voice. He roughly tore the earpiece out of its port and thrust it into his ear. He bit his tongue once or twice before he managed to reply in anything resembling his usual composure.

 

“This is Shimada.” His words were surprisingly even for all his perturbation.

 

There was silence for a disconcertingly long while, maybe up to a minute. Then--

 

“Hanzo? Brother, can you hear me?”

 

Hanzo froze.

 

“Hanzo? Hanzo! McCree, can you see him? Where is he?” Hanzo threw himself to the ground, biting back a cry of pain as he crushed the blisters on his chest beneath him. This roof had no parapet, nothing to shield him. If the cowboy was nearby, he need only scale any of the surrounding buildings. There were a disconcerting number of perches to have a clear, unobstructed shot at him--but, since he had the comm, the cowboy could track him no matter where he hid.

 

But who was he really hiding from? The cowboy or Genji?

 

“McCree? _McCree?_ ”

 

“Uh, I don’ see-”

 

“I am here,” Hanzo ground out.

 

The link went silent for a few beats, then Genji asked, cautiously, “Hanzo? Are you injured?”

 

“No,” said Hanzo automatically, ignoring the agonizing pain where the blisters were pressing into the roof.

 

“Shimada--” broke in the cowboy for a moment, but he said nothing more.

 

After a few moments, Genji slowly and clearly said, every word carefully enunciated, “Hanzo. Listen to me. McCree saw you pick up the comm.” A spike of paranoia surged through Hanzo. “He says you looked injured. He, Soldier, and Dr. Ziegler have been watching the comm for three days, waiting for you.” Genji waited for a reply that Hanzo never gave. He continued, an edge of desperation working into his voice. “Dr. Ziegler took care of McCree’s injuries right away, Hanzo. She’s a pioneer in nanobot medical technology, and she was able to heal him almost immediately. There was no permanent damage. He’s there to help you, Hanzo, I swear it. Do you hear me? They’re all there to help you. Are you injured? Hanzo?”

 

Hanzo listened to Genji’s earnest tone, subconsciously shaking his head. Here to help him? He had attacked, nearly killed one of them. Helping him would be the last thing on their minds. His mind felt like it was swirling as he considered the possibilities. Perhaps they had decided he was too dangerous to leave roaming the country. Perhaps they had decided to contain him, or hand him over to the authorities. Genji’s voice held no hint of duplicity, but even if he was sincere, which he had no reason to be, it would be easy enough for Overwatch to mislead them both until they had their hands on Hanzo.

 

He began to crawl towards one of the roof’s edges, leaving the comm behind. The risk had been too great. He had been a fool to recover it while he was still weak and defenseless, before he had had time to recover and approach Overwatch from a position of strength.

 

“Shimada.”

 

Hanzo froze again at the sound of the cowboy’s gravelly voice in his ear. He waited for a gunshot.

 

“Shimada, listen t’me. Ang--Dr. Ziegler fixed me up right away. I didn’ even need a cast. You didn’ do nothin’ irreversible t’me. All we need t’do now is make sure you’re ok, alright? That’s it, nothin’ more.” He paused. “Genji’s been worried sick over you. I promised him I would get you back safe and sound. I _promised_ him, Shimada, I gave my word.”

 

“He did, Hanzo,” confirmed Genji. “ _Please_ , Hanzo. Where are you? Are you injured?”

 

Hanzo discovered that, as much as he had forgotten about the sound of Genji’s voice, he did remember the quaver that had always betrayed when his brother was on the verge of tears.

 

“I--” he began hesitantly, unable to stop himself. “--I have second degree burns. And bruises. That is all. They are painful, but they are not serious.”

 

He heard someone let out a breath in a whoosh.

 

“Dr. Ziegler can treat you,” said Genji, cautious relief plain in his voice. “She’s at the safehouse with Soldier. McCree--” Genji hesitated but pressed on. “McCree is nearby, with a vehicle. He can take you straight to her. Go to him, Hanzo.”

 

Hanzo recoiled from the idea, despite himself. “I do not require treatment,” he said hotly.

 

“Hanzo,” Genji bit out, “You have been missing for three days, right after you--” He stopped himself, but not in time.

 

He knew. He _knew._ Hanzo let his head slump down against the photovoltaic roofing.

 

“Hanzo,” Genji said softly after a long silence. “I need to know that you’re alright. I need to know you’re being taken care of. You don’t have to do this alone anymore.”

 

“You waste your compassion on me,” Hanzo heard himself say, voice muffled.

 

Genji’s response was immediate, as if he had expected him to say that.

 

“It is wasted only if you refuse it, _anija_.”

 

Hanzo was tired, unstable, wounded, and, at that moment, completely overwhelmed, so all he could say was, “I will meet the cowboy in the street.”

 

“Thank you, Hanzo.”

 

“I am doing you no service,” he grumbled as he rose to his knees and shuffled back to retrieve the comm. Genji made a noise that might have been a chuckle, but said no more until Hanzo was safely down the side of the building and waiting in the shadows. A flash of reflected light off the surrounding windows announced the approach of a small two-door sedan, its engine whirring slightly through the silence of the deserted street. Hanzo could clearly see the cowboy in the driver’s seat even before Genji confirmed the make and color of the car for him. Hanzo rolled his shoulders back, popping his back as he tried to assume his usual rigid posture and demeanor.

 

“Leave the commlink open,” Genji requested as he strode forward towards the waiting cowboy. “The Yoneyama have been fairly active since the assault on the warehouse.” An excuse, thought Hanzo, to monitor them both. “Soldier and Dr. Ziegler are on standby in case any of them stumble on you two.”

 

“Is the safehouse secure?” asked Hanzo as he opened the door and slid into the seat, more to forestall anything the cowboy was going to say than anything else. He held back a snort to see that, while he foregone the cape and chaps, he had apparently been staking out the comm with his signature hat, belt, and cowboy boots. His one concession to stealth was the dark blue and grey plaid of his flannel shirt.

 

To his credit. he only nodded to him, his face a blank mask, before he pressed the accelerator and the car sped off. True to both his and Genji’s word, he held onto the steering wheel with a seemingly whole arm, and there did not seem to be anything wrong with his knee, either. Hanzo settled into his seat as much as his discomfort would allow, his bag at his feet and Storm Bow cradled awkwardly across his lap. He pointedly ignored the soft beeping warning that his seatbelt was not buckled. He was unwilling to sacrifice even the least bit of his mobility at that time, car safety be damned.

 

“We think so,” Genji replied after a short pause, wondering, perhaps, how much of a minefield his brother’s paranoia presented. “There hasn’t been much indication of Yoneyama activity around there besides cursory visits to their fronts, and they don’t have many in the area.”

 

“But they have some?”

 

“None within three kilometers.”

 

Hanzo immediately pursed his lips. “That does not exclude the harbor where I met the dinghy. They are likely to have at least a contact there, if not a front.” He felt the eyes of the cowboy flash to rest on him for a moment before concentrating once more on the road.

 

Genji coughed. “If they do, they haven’t--”

 

“Avoid the expressways,” interrupted Hanzo, staring straight ahead. “Take Route 7. It is not a toll road, and there is no traffic barrier.”

 

“Will do,” replied the cowboy, turning on his blinker as he made to turn onto his new route.

 

That was the last anyone said for the hour-long trip.

 

Exhaustion and hunger were beginning to war inside him, adding to the soreness of his head and muscles and the pain of the blisters, several of which had popped when he threw himself down on the roof. He distracted himself as much as possible from his physical state by keeping a sharp lookout for anyone following the car as they passed out of Niigata City proper into the suburbs of the surrounding prefecture, and the task, though mindnumbing, was mindnumbing enough to make the time pass surprisingly quickly despite his being hyperaware of the man sitting next to him.

 

The cowboy was mercifully silent, though he kept glancing at Hanzo in a strange way. He _had_ expected thinly-concealed anger, a tightly reined-in urge to mock or criticize or even simply to goad from the cowboy, but if Hanzo had to pick a word for the feeling the cowboy was emanating, it would be simply _nervous_ , which he struggled to explain. If he was expecting Hanzo to attack him again, he was far too relaxed--he was tense, of course, but his limbs and muscles were not battle-ready taut, prepared to deflect and inflict deadly force. He was certainly mindful of his movements, keeping both hands in plain sight, firmly on the wheel, and avoiding any sudden movements as though Hanzo were a skittish bird ready to take flight at any moment, but in a way that was distinctly--abashed?

 

Hanzo did his best to wear his usual disinterested expression even as the gears ground away sluggishly in his aching head.

 

“We’re approaching the safehouse,” the cowboy said at last as he exited the highway and returned to the surface streets.

 

“Copy that,” replied the gruff voice that had belonged to the tall, muscular, red-visored man who had seemed to be in command of the raid on the warehouse. “Surveillance shows no sign of hostiles in the area, but stay sharp.”

 

“That’s Soldier: 76,” the cowboy said quietly. Hanzo flicked his eye to the cowboy. “He joined about a month ago. He’s been takin’ on crime syndicates up and down North and South America, so we figured he’d be good t’lead the raid.” Hanzo did not reply. The cowboy ran his metal hand over his beard in a gesture that betrayed his nervousness before continuing, as though he suddenly found the silence intolerable. “And Angie--that’s, uh, that’s Dr. Ziegler or ‘Mercy’ durin’ missions--she showed up just a couple o’ weeks after I did. She was in the old Overwatch, too, doin’ medical research in the Medic Corps. She’s done a lot of work in nanotech and rapid healin’. She’s the one who--” the cowboy stopped himself for a brief moment before continuing, “Uh, anyway. She’ll fix you up right away.”

 

Hanzo maintained his silence, wondering if the cowboy was merely rambling or would eventually come to a point of some kind. He continued after a fashion as he turned down the darkened residential streets. “Everyone there was old Overwatch, actually. The little guy with the claw arm was Torbjörn, but don’ quote me on that pronunciation. He was in the engineerin’ department, maintains all the macrotech and whatnot in our equipment and on the base, especially our defenses. The guy in the battle armor was Reinhardt. He used t’be in the front lines 24/7. They kept promotin’ him, but he would never do anythin’ but rush straight out into the nearest fight, even now, old geezer that he is. I dunno if you saw his face?” He glanced at Hanzo, but Hanzo merely stared back. The cowboy fidgeted, most uncharacteristically from everything Hanzo knew or guessed about him. “Anyway. Last person there was Tracer. She’s one of our pilots, and she--”

 

“If you wished to brief me about the team, you should have done so long before the raid.” Hanzo’s good eye widened slightly, surprised at his own outburst. It had suddenly occurred to him what the cowboy was doing, and he had blurted out the criticism before he could think to stop himself. He must truly be at the end of his rope; it had been years since he had slipped up in this way. Nevertheless, he fought the urge to look away, even when the cowboy turned his head to look at him squarely.

 

“Yeah, I should have.” The admission was, perhaps, even more surprising. The cowboy even had the grace to look a bit ashamed, even as his unwavering brown eyes held Hanzo’s. “I put you on the back burner while we rushed t’get movin’.” He turned back to the road and fell silent for the last few blocks.

 

The cowboy parked around the corner from the safehouse. He reached behind his seat and grabbed a small backpack before he got out. Hanzo followed slowly, bag and Storm Bow in hand. They fell into step next to each other. Hanzo kept the cowboy in his peripheral vision, as he was sure the cowboy was doing.

 

They passed through the gate without challenge and rounded the safehouse to enter from the rear, as Hanzo usually did. He narrowed his eye at the largest of the concrete pads that sat astride the buildings; all the leaves had been cleared away from it, even the ones matted to the ground by years of rain and snow, in a wide circle around it. That was worrisome; it was a clear sign of inhabitants to anyone who flew a drone overhead.

 

The cowboy stepped ahead at the last moment and pulled open the back door, waving Hanzo to go before him. He did so, suppressing the paranoia that even now rose from having the cowboy at his back. He blinked at the dim light that illuminated the dining area.

 

“We’re here. Genji, I’m gettin’ him to Angie right now.”

 

“Thank you, McCree,” replied the robotic voice over the comm. Hanzo knitted his eyebrows together. Had it sounded so artificial when he was on that rooftop? “Soldier is checking the perimeter. He’ll join you all in a few minutes.” A brief burst of static, and then, “You’re in good hands, Hanzo. Dr. Ziegler is the best, second-to-none. May I--I would speak with you, later, if you are willing.”

 

Hanzo felt torn, but his exhaustion was hitting him hard now that he was in a space that he considered fairly secure. “Yes,” he answered tiredly. “Until then.”

 

“Goodnight, brother.”

 

Hanzo was stopped from replying by the entrance of the doctor. She was dressed much more traditionally now, a white lab coat thrown over a yellow buttondown shirt and black slacks, her blonde hair caught in a high ponytail as it had been at the warehouse.

 

“Ah, Mr. Shimada.” She approached slowly enough to betray her caution. Her eyes narrowed as she took in the blisters, white and red across his face, neck, and exposed pectoral and arm. “Second-degree burns. What caused them?”

 

He hesitated. “I--was in the sun too long, while sleeping. I did not realize I was burning until I woke.”

 

The doctor nodded and she gestured at the hallway. “I have set up my equipment downstairs.”

 

Hanzo made for it, but paused when the cowboy cleared his throat. “Standard procedure calls for a report and debriefin’ as soon as possible after a mission. 76 was leadin’ the mission, so he’ll be the one t’report to.”

 

Hanzo suppressed. “Very well. Shall I report to him now or after the examination?”

 

“It’s too late--or too early?--to do that now. Ang--Dr. Ziegler will fix you up, and you can debrief in the morning.”

 

Hanzo nodded over his shoulder as he entered the hallway.

 

The doctor, much like the cowboy, walked beside him. The cowboy remained in the dining area as the pair descended into the basement. Unlike the cowboy, however, the doctor looked at him closely, especially at the blister obscuring his eye. “The blisters are contaminated, most likely infected. When did they first form?” She was talking slowly, gently, keeping her voice level. Hanzo could hear an accent coloring all her words, something European. German or Polish or similar.

 

“This--yesterday morning, I believe,” he answered.

 

She nodded again as she ushered him into one of the rooms that had been strangely empty when he had first arrived and inspected the safehouse. Now it had a chair pilfered from the dining area above surrounded with four or five knee-high toolchest-like cabinets on rollers, one of which was plugged into the nearest outlet with a long cord, all brightly lit with bland fluorescent lighting. Dr. Zielger went to the plugged-in one first, opening a drawer and taking out a syringe and a small bottle filled with a shimmery gold liquid. She plunged the needle through the lid as she spoke.

 

“I believe the best course of action will be to clean the blisters before I attempt anything else. I’d like to administer some nanobots to perform a preliminary scan of your injuries while you clean up, if I may.” She turned around as she pointed the needle up and tapped the syringe. She waited for him to nod, curtly, before adding, “I understand it will be quite painful, but please try to be thorough. The bots will act as painkillers to make it easier.” Hanzo nodded again. “I will inject them into your shoulder. It may feel strange as they disperse. It is perfectly normal.” Hanzo nodded once more as she stepped to his side. He was one of those increasingly old-fashioned people who distrusted medical nanotechnology on principal, but if this was Overwatch protocol he had little choice. He waited as she quickly inserted the needle into a relatively undamaged portion of his left shoulder and injected the nanobots. Then, putting the used syringe into one of the drawers, she withdrew some scrubs from another and handed them to him. “I do not know if there is a bucket or something similar for you to use instead of the shower.”

 

Hanzo nodded as he resisted the urge to roll his shoulder to try to free it of the cold, prickling sensation that was slowly spreading from his shoulder down his arm, warming slightly as it went. He turned and left the room, heading for the showers.

 

There was, indeed, a bucket in the showers’ supply closet, but it needed to be washed thoroughly before he trusted it enough to fill with lukewarm water that he poured gently over himself as he stood in one of the stalls. Dr. Ziegler had been correct in predicting that it would be painful; Hanzo had to clench his jaw each time he poured even a minute amount of water over his blisters. The bruises in his back protested as he lifted the bucket over and over again, but he ignored them as best as he could.

 

The real test was using the soap to get the most stubborn of the grime off. He tried to be as gentle as possible, but in the end it did take some scrubbing, and some of the blisters were freely bleeding by the time he was satisfied. He redressed in the scrubs, leaving off the left sleeve in a more or less identical manner to his _kyudo-gi_ to avoid the cloth sticking to his skin. He tossed his clothes and the bag into the barrack that he had been sleeping in, looking inside to inspect how much Overwatch had invaded his privacy. To his surprise, he spotted the cello case that he had left behind on the apartment building roof before the raid. He made a mental note to find out who was responsible, and to extend his gratitude if he could manage it.

 

He probably could, if it had not been the cowboy.

 

Or perhaps he could, since the cowboy had not shot him on sight.

 

He returned to the makeshift examination room. Dr. Ziegler turned to face him as he entered, holding her strange black and white staff in both hands. She walked forward to meet him, still slowly, still cautiously, as she bent forward to examine the now clean and bleeding blisters.

 

“That should be good enough,” she said with a small smile. “Please, sit.” Hanzo settled into the chair rigidly, his back not touching the backrest. Dr. Ziegler shook the staff in her arms slightly. “This is the Caduceus, a medical device that I designed years ago. In a nutshell, it injects nanobots into a subject, then works with them to scan, identify, and repair damage. This is a mobile version designed for use in the field under extreme conditions.”

 

“I was not aware that an inventor of the Caduceus was affiliated with Overwatch,” said Hanzo, watching her closely. He had heard of the Caduceus before. It, and similar technology, had taken the world by storm when it was introduced eight or ten years ago. It was a truly miraculous invention, one that had cut mortality rates from trauma down by eighty or more percent. A Nobel Prize had been issued for it, but Hanzo did not recall a Dr. Ziegler among the team of thirty or so scientists that the Karolinska Institutet had narrowed the “deserving” candidates to, despite the massive amount of press and no small amount of controversy that surrounded the “inventors”.

 

Dr. Ziegler smiled slightly. “My contributions were not made public.”

 

“Even after--”

 

“Yes,” she said shortly. “But that is neither here nor there.” She waved the staff again. “This is what I will use to examine you. It will emit a biotic beam that will surround you, accompanied by a warm sensation that should feel pleasant. If it does not, or if you feel uncomfortable for any reason, please let me know and I’ll turn it off. Alright?” she finished with a smile.

 

He nodded slowly, and she took a few steps back while pointing the staff at him. “Here we go,” she said and pressed a button somewhere on the staff. As she said, a golden beam immediately embraced him with the feeling of a warm bath or a room heated a few degrees above room temperature in the dead of winter. He tensed at first, but his muscles soon relaxed, almost against his will. He even leaned back in the chair. His bruises hardly protested at all.

 

The doctor, meanwhile, was reading a scrolling holographic screen the staff projected, with words and numbers flashing past almost too quickly to be seen. They seemed to make sense to her, however, because she announced, “Everything is as we knew already. Burns and bruises. Nothing broken, nothing sprained.” She adjusted something on the staff with one hand while holding it steady with the other. “In battle, the Caduceus would heal you as quickly as your body allows. This, however, increases scarring and the risk of infection. A slower healing cycle helps combat this, and it is less of a strain on your body. I believe a thirty minutes should be adequate today. However, your body’s reserves are very low.” Indeed, Hanzo’s stomach to roaring to life with hunger pangs that almost equaled his blisters in pain. “Here,” she said, crossing to another one of the cabinets and withdrawing three bottles of protein shakes, “You will need both the calories and the raw material. Drink.”

 

Hanzo obeyed, throwing a cursory glance over the bottles’ labeling in English, Spanish, and Italian. He twisted the lid off the first and tested it cautiously, mindful of his stomach’s earlier reaction. Now, however, his stomach was settled enough and ravenous enough to allow him to more or less chug all three bottles until he felt comfortably full.

 

As he did so, he became aware of the fading pain in his blisters. Looking down at his chest and arm, he watched, fascinated and slightly repulsed, as the bleeding skin closed, the skin over the punctured and drained blisters turned white, and the still intact blisters slowly smoothed out. The doctor split her time between the projected screen and examining him, taking tweezers in her gloved hands and gently lifting away patches of skin that came loose under the drained blisters. It felt like peeling skin off a bad sunburn, except that the skin had had no time to dry out first, so it came away with an unpleasant sticking sensation.

 

Soon the blister over his right eye subsided, allowing him to open it blearily, with a rather disorienting feeling as it struggled to adjust to the light.

 

It did not seem to take anywhere near thirty minutes before his skin was whole once more. He carefully examined his tattoo for any damage or fading. He had been badly burned before and it had seemed to do nothing to the intricate design, but he did not trust that his luck would hold forever.

 

He looked up at the doctor with a questioning look. “Fifteen more minutes,” she said cheerily. Too cheerily, with a smile that was too tight. He ran his fingers over his arm and face, and carefully stretched out his back. No pain, although his spine did pop several times

 

“Is there truly more damage?” he asked warily.

 

The doctor was silent for a few moments before she propped the staff against the wall once more. She rolled one of the cabinets closer to him and sat on it carefully, lowering herself to his level. It was a scene directly out of the medical dramas he had watched off and on in his youth, and he narrowed his eyes at the display, although the warmth of the biotic beam prevented him from tensing as much as he should have.

 

She looked him in the eye, her strikingly dark blue eyes soft yet serious. “Your liver is in the early stages of cirrhosis,” she said quietly. “Brought on by heavy alcohol consumption, if the trace levels in your blood are any indication.”

 

Hanzo merely looked back at her, unsurprised. A lack of medical care and a surplus of time and drink over the years meant some kind of organ damage was expected, if not inevitable.

 

She shifted. “It is early enough that the bots will have no trouble reversing the damage. The liver’s regenerative capabilities complement them in that regard. That is the reason for the overly long cycle; it should ensure any other alcohol-related damage is also found and corrected.”

 

“I believe,” said Hanzo quietly, “that it is standard practice for doctors to inform their patients of all procedures before they are performed.”

 

Dr. Ziegler raised her chin. “You are a member of Overwatch. You gave your consent when you joined.”

 

“I have _not_ joined,” he replied with more than a hint of impatience. “My status is provisional, at best, and I was not informed that I surrendered all rights to approve or deny medical intervention.”

 

“Meaning that you would not have consented to this procedure?” she asked.

 

Hanzo’s eyes flashed. “We will never know, now.”

 

Silence descended, heavy and tense.

 

The doctor broke it. “As a member of Overwatch, provisional or otherwise, it is my duty to render any and all medical aid to you, on and off the battlefield.” She rubbed her chin absently, as if pondering her words. Then, slowly, she said, “I suppose my time with Overwatch has left me in the habit of instinctively correcting alcohol-related damage as soon as I see it.”

 

She waited for any reply, but when he gave none she continued. “As you can imagine, alcohol was a fairly common coping mechanism for many in Overwatch, both during the Crisis and after. It certainly was for me.” Hanzo felt his eyebrow twitch at the admission. “I was very young when I joined Overwatch, and I have witnessed many things that seemed easier to bear with a few bottles of Eichhof at my side. I am sure you understand.”

 

Hanzo did not know what to say, did not know how much or how little she meant to imply with that statement. Dr. Ziegler studied his shuttered face for a few moments before sighing. “I do not want to pressure you in any way,” she said carefully. “I merely wished you to know that we in Overwatch are familiar with many of the challenges you face. I am not qualified to help you with all of them, by any stretch of the imagination, but I will not fail to give any help that I can.”

 

Hanzo frowned. He had little experience with doctors, having had little opportunity to avail himself of most aid. His prosthetics had been a singular deviation from the norm, perhaps the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him, but even that doctor had not been quite so keen to convince him of her benevolence.

 

It had to be because of Genji. She must be aware of their history and why he would distrust any--

 

She must be aware of their history. Hanzo stiffened, thinking of both Genji’s glowing recommendation only a half-hour ago and the cowboy suddenly interrupting himself when he had been telling Hanzo about her. He glanced at the staff, narrowing his eyes. She had made contributions that were not made public. Surely Genji would have made headlines, if someone had been brought back from so close to the brink of death, even at the cost of such a body.

 

She saw the change in his posture. “Yes,” she said softly. “Even in spite of all that.”

 

He refused to look at her directly, yet keeping her in his peripherals, as he said, “You know--you must know, almost better than myself and Genji, what I did to him.”

 

“Of course.” The words are simple and bold.

 

“Yet you are still willing to aid me.”

 

She stood and took a few steps away from him. He risked a glance. She was facing away from him, arms folded, the outline of her figure clear and harsh in the fluorescent light. When she spoke, her voice was tight and controlled. “I won’t pretend I feel no anger. I know what you did to him, and for a long time that was _all_ I knew of you. For years that was all Genji allowed me, or anyone for that matter, to know of you. However--” she bowed her head. “I take my oath seriously, Mr. Shimada. I have treated many people who have done far worse things than you. If all I knew of you was what you did to him, you may rest assured I would still help you to the best of my abilities.

 

“But let me tell you something about Genji.”

 

She turned to face him, and Hanzo was caught by the small smile on her face, the last thing he expected to see. It was tremulous, and unsure, but it was there and it stayed even as they locked eyes.

 

“I saved Genji’s life ten years ago, and as I said the only things he allowed us to know of his old life, his family, of you, was filled with pain and anger. That was Genji, also, for years. Pained and angry.” Hanzo’s eyes tried to slide closed against the surge of guilt, but he stubbornly kept them open. “I assumed that was simply his nature. A failure on my part, as it turned out. When Overwatch was disbanded, he disappeared into the world, as broken in spirit as the day we found him. We did not meet again until the Recall, and do you know? I hardly knew him at all.” Her smile grew far more sure, her eyes unfocusing as she recalled. “He had--well. It is not my place to tell you what I was not there to see, but now he is, how shall I put it? Whole. At peace. And I found I hadn’t met Genji until then. Not truly.”

 

Dr. Ziegler trailed off, lost in her thoughts. Hanzo watched her, unsure how to proceed. He was about to speak when she seemed to come to herself and fixed him once again with her gaze. “He is as honest as always about what you did to him, but he has forgiven you. If that was all he did, I admit that I would still completely oppose accepting you into Overwatch, for his and all of our safety. But--he has told us much more about his life now. It is no longer painful for him to remember. He wants his friends to understand the situation you two were in, and why it happened. He wants us to know _you_ , as he did, before it happened. He wants us to know you now, nearly as badly as he himself wants to know you again.”

 

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That, more than anything, has convinced me to give you a chance,” she said at last.

 

The staff gave a soft tone, and the biotic field waned. Dr. Ziegler crossed over to it, glancing over the projected screen one last time before she switched off the field completely, allowing it to disperse.

 

Hanzo remained still, watching her, his mind blank with unbelieving astonishment. It was too much to accept, far too much to be true.

 

“Do you--” he began, but his jaw snapped shut before he could finish the question. It was not something that he wanted her to answer, anyway.

 

She looked up and waited, but when he gave no sign of continuing she merely nodded and said, “The treatment has been successful. Everything looks normal, although I recommend you sleep as soon as possible.” She hesitated, then ventured, “I would like to forward some medical material to your comm that may be helpful.”

 

He stood and bobbed his head tiredly, suddenly anxious to leave. “As you wish. Thank you, doctor. Good night.”

 

He quickly walked  past her into the hall, slowing slightly as she called after him, “And don’t worry about security. Both, hmm, both Soldier: 76 and Jesse are guarding the perimeter. Sleep well, Mr. Shimada.”

 

He doubted he would as he slipped into the barrack and locked the door before searching the room for anything amiss or dangerous to alleviate his paranoia after some unknown person had entered it, even if it was just to drop off the case. But, he admitted to himself, when was finally satisfied and disrobed and laid himself down in the bunk, the knowledge that someone was watching for danger was a strangely welcome relief, relief that was soon followed by a wave of exhaustion.

 

It was not enough, however, to prevent him from staring into the darkness as he analyzed and reanalyzed the night’s events ad nauseum. The cowboy’s strange nervousness, bordering on guilt, especially consumed him as he tried to find the angle the cowboy was playing at.

 

The doctor’s words were easier to believe, even if they threw Genji into a more mysterious light. Years of bitter anger he could easily believe from his brother, but the question he almost asked Dr. Ziegler soon crowded out every other thought, a question that had not occurred to him until she had told him how long his anger had lasted and how recently it had vanished in favor of misplaced forgiveness.

 

Why? _Why_ had his brother decided to forgive him?

 

He almost rose several times for a few mouthfuls of sake from the blue cartons, but his limbs felt leaden after so much abuse and would not allow any movement. So he simply lay there, for hours, until unconsciousness finally stole him away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tadaaaa!
> 
> More set-up, more than anything else. McCree's response was a little reserved, wouldn't you say? Heh heh heh...
> 
> Edit (22/11/2017): [Bluandorange](https://bluandorange.tumblr.com) drew a lovely portrait of Hanzo after he ["slept on a roof and burned for his sins"](http://bluandorange.tumblr.com/post/167786961620/that-one-time-in-claroquequiza-s-fanfic), as well as Jesse's reaction--and it's wonderful!! Thank you so much!!!


	6. Ración de Combate

It was impossible to tell how long he slept and how many times he woke. The basement room allowed no natural light, of course, so there was little to distinguish between the oblivion of sleep and the bare minimum of awareness, staring into the dark.

 

Eventually, Hanzo supposed that he could half-remember enough groggy awakenings to indicate that the night was probably over at least.

 

He sat up carefully, more out of a feeling that he ought to rather than needing to. Biotic fields were a luxury for him, and he was unused to feeling well so soon after being in such pain. As it was, even the remnants of the hangover, which he had expected to feel for another couple of days, were gone. His head was as clear as his skin, his muscles loose and relaxed, his stomach completely calm.

 

Not how he expected to feel just one day after a blackout, by any means.

 

Even his stubs felt normal in his prosthetics after nearly five straight days of constant use, which was a slight miracle. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood, stretching out his spine with fewer than usual pops, before he crossed to the door and made sure it was still locked. Only then did he brush aside everything he had haphazardly thrown to the floor the night before and begin his morning exercises, allowing himself to fall forward as a solid plank to catch himself with his brawny arms and immediately begin a set of pushups.

 

He went through the routine in the complete darkness, switching effortlessly from pushups to squats to crunches, using the upper bunk’s frame for bodyweight rowing exercises, and jumping and running in place until the sweat ran down his face and bare chest and back. Only when his limbs were trembling with fatigue did he transition into a kata, breathing deep to still the tremors as he swept through the kicks and punches, crossing from one end of the room to the other and back again as he did so.

 

He could admit to himself that he was pushing himself a little further, taking a little longer to complete his exercises in an attempt to delay the inevitable. Out there, the safehouse that had hitherto echoed with emptiness now felt full to bursting, even with a mere three other people. Necessity was all that had brought him here the night before; now it was barely reining him in. He had no other wish but to be gone and no choice but to stay.

 

Eventually he ran out of precise movements to practice. There was nothing more to do but to steel himself for all the necessary acts of the day.

 

He finally flipped on the lights, throwing the room into harsh relief. He gathered his dirty clothing, wrinkling his nose at their odor. He doubted that he smelled much better--he had focused on cleaning his blisters the night before; he certainly had not done anything about the stubble on his face or the tangles in his hair or his filmy teeth. He closed his eyes and sighed as the full realization of how slovenly he had allowed himself to become struck him. It was nothing short of disgraceful.

 

He dumped the clothes next to the door and threw his small bag of toiletries on top before dressing in the scrubs from the night before and silently opening the door. Near-darkness greeted him. If the other three occupants of the safehouse were awake, there was no sign of them. Hanzo dearly wished to give as little sign of himself as possible, but it was simply not advisable. He had brutally attacked one of them--it would be asinine to sneak around. They would be well within their rights to defend themselves if he came upon any of them unawares.

 

He walked to the nearest lightswitch and flicked on the hallway lights, deliberately setting his feet down harder and louder than usual, the sound nearly thunderous to his nervous ears. He was sure that to most people his steps would sound quiet, but to him it was as good as banging pots and pans together.

 

The bland light revealed that none of the other doors were open, not even the door to the doctor’s ad hoc examination room. Hanzo left the barrack door wide open as a warning that he was out and about (even as he achingly thought of his exposed belongings) as he clanged his way down to the tiny laundry room next to the showers. He unceremoniously dumped his clothing into one of the two washing machines before jarring the hardened mass of powdered laundry detergent loose with a few good whacks to the side of the ancient box. Leaving the machine to churn, he paused at the door to the showers, wondering for a moment if it would be overkill to leave it open as well. He settled for closing the door for some desperately wished-for privacy, but immediately turning on a loud, gushing spray of water in one of the shower stalls.

 

He grimaced when he caught sight of himself in the wide mirror over the sinks. He looked almost as feral as the cats in Hokkaido.

 

No one intruded as he cleaned up. He had no idea if he could thank luck or deference for it, but he was grateful nonetheless. After carefully brushing out his hair, shaving off the stubble, brushing his teeth, and scrubbing himself down in the shower, he could not help but marvel at how refreshed he felt. He could not remember the last time he felt so clean, inside and out--perhaps after that visit to the onsen, years ago? Perhaps not even then.

 

Perhaps it was the nanobots. If he truly had been in the opening stages of liver failure, perhaps this feeling of physical well-being was thanks to the doctor’s ministrations. Hanzo hummed to himself, pursing his lips. If that was the case, then he supposed he must show gratitude, even if it would be awkward given the content of their conversation the night before. He was lucky she was willing to offer assistance at all, but it still felt like she had overstepped her bounds by treating him when he did not even know he was ill.

 

He dressed again in the scrubs before cautiously moving into the hallway, still meeting no one. The washing machine had made quick work of his clothes, and he carried the damp mass back to the barrack, carefully shutting the door behind him. There was a drying rack folded up on one wall, and he carefully arranged each article of clothing on it before dressing in his usual clothing. It was the final piece to restoring normalcy, of a kind, and he took a moment to brush at the fabric of the _kyudo-gi_ and appreciate its familiar texture.

 

By now his stomach was giving audible rumbles. Given that there was no sign of anyone in the basement, it was likely the others were upstairs, where the food was. Hanzo sighed, allowing himself to hope for one moment that, once they had fulfilled Genji’s ludicrous wishes to ensure his wellbeing, they had packed up and returned to wherever they had come from.

 

But no, he remembered. He had a debriefing to attend, with the Soldier, the leader of the raid. A report of everything that had happened, including the attack on the cowboy.

 

Perhaps this was where he and Overwatch would part ways, he suddenly thought. Perhaps that was why there had been no immediate dismissal. There might be a protocol to follow: first, an attempt to make sure all contracted parties were safe, then, a statement, an admission of fault, and only then the push out the door.

 

He could only hope.

 

He was about to push the door open again and head upstairs when the comm beeped.

 

It lay, nearly completely forgotten, in the plastic bag alongside the blue cartons of sake. The screen powered on when he picked it up, warning of a low battery. He unlocked it and blinked at the notification. Someone had sent him messages; someone other than the cowboy. The secure messaging app had had a single conversation thread up until now. Now there were three.

 

One was from the doctor. Hanzo rolled his eyes expressively. She said she was going to forward him “medical material”. He could guess what that would contain.

 

The other thread was a complete surprise.

 

> >From: Agent Tracer
> 
>  
> 
> Hello there! Just heard from Genji that you’re safe and sound!
> 
> Glad to hear it! Sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet you properly,
> 
> but I’ll be picking up J, A, and 76, so we’ll be sure to chat then!
> 
> -Lena

 

Hanzo stared at the message for a few seconds. It took that long to first place the name and then wonder why “Tracer” was contacting him. Indeed, the cowboy had said she was part of the old team, and therefore an old comrade of Genji’s, so there was every reason for her not to.

 

His stomach rumbled, and he clipped the comm to his belt as he headed out the door, leaving it open behind him once more. This was one mystery that was not worth thinking over on an empty stomach.

 

He had been too surprised by Agent Tracer’s message to even glance at the time, but sunlight was spilling down the stairs as he climbed up, at an angle that indicated it was sometime in the afternoon. He had slept far longer than he assumed. He made his way slowly towards the dining room, making sure to make plenty of noise even as he listened for any evidence of habitation. There did not seem to be any, but there were some wet dishes collected in a drying rack by the side of the kitchen sink when he entered, so someone had been there recently at least.

 

He began rummaging through the cupboards, looking for the canned goods he had bought when he had first arrived here. He soon found that, while his own supplies were still there, they had been shoved beside and behind stacks of small boxes wrapped in black plastic. He took one out, running his fingers across the letters stamped on top:

 

FUERZAS ARMADAS

ARMED FORCES

FORCES ARMÉES

 

Hanzo snorted indelicately.

 

There was a sudden rap of knuckles on wood. “MREs, courtesy of the Spanish Armed Forces.”

 

Hanzo stiffened, but forced himself to turn slowly. The low rough voice had not startled him, really, but the red visor did. It was not unlike Genji’s, and a cold feeling settled in his stomach as he made the connection, nearly driving away his hunger.

 

The visor belonged to a giant of a man. He loomed in the entryway to the hall, almost filling it entirely with his broad shoulders and muscular frame. The visor was more of a mask, covering all of his face except for his forehead and rather receded hairline, his white hair sticking fluffily off the top of his head. Hanzo found himself focusing on that more than anything, hardly glancing at the dark blue jumpsuit that made up the rest of the other’s attire. He was glad for that piece of exposed humanity. Part of what made Genji so disconcerting was how robotic he was. It was hard to believe anything human was left until he removed the--

 

The mask notwithstanding, he was more than aware of the scrutinizing look the man--the Soldier, Hanzo supposed--gave him before he strode forward with great sweeping strides to sit at one of the two tables that had been set up in the middle of the dining area, setting a coffee mug on its surface with a faint clatter. “Shimada Hanzo, right?” he asked. His mouth was completely covered and invisible, yet his voice was clear. Hanzo could not see any speakers or mouth hole to explain it as he nodded silently. The Soldier nodded back. “They call me Soldier: 76. McCree tell you about the debriefing?” Another nod from Hanzo. “The timing’s up to you. Mercy says you’re physically recovered, but if you need some more time, the evac’s not until tomorrow morning.”

 

Hanzo blinked.

 

“Expecting more of an interrogation after banging up McCree, huh?” The Soldier actually chuckled. “Believe me, if you were being brought in for questioning, your night would have been a lot rougher. It’s not that hard to turn the barracks into cells.” He picked up the mug and swirled whatever was in it around for a moment, letting the words hang in the air for a moment. “Eat and debrief, debrief and eat, eat, sleep, and debrief, it’s up to you,” he continued. “It’s gotta be done before we leave, though--never did trust electronic channels.”

 

Hanzo’s fingers twitched as they held the black box in his hands. To be honest, since the Soldier was right here, he would prefer to get the ordeal over with. He opened his mouth to speak, but his stomach chose that moment to rumble embarrassingly loudly. It had been hours since he had eaten anything, and the morning exercises were catching up to him.

 

“Eat first,” said the Soldier, gesturing at the chair across the table from himself.

 

Hanzo resisted the urge to purse his lips as he obeyed. It had been a long time since he was at the behest of anybody, but it was easier to follow this order, given that this man was obviously older than him. It would be a cold day in Hell before Hanzo needlessly disrespected his elders.

 

He sounded American, though, so it would not do to obey him _too_ blindly.

 

He gingerly set the black box on the table before taking his seat. He had no idea what was in it, but the Soldier did not seem bothered by his taking it, and he would not turn down an opportunity to stretch his own resources out. He ripped off the thin plastic, revealing a cardboard box that he eased open. Within were several tin cans and vacuum-sealed packages. He took the largest can and frowned at the label. COCIDO MADRILEÑO.

 

“Chickpeas with pork, basically,” supplied the Soldier as he pushed away from the table and stood. “There should be some chicken soup with pasta in there, too. It’s pretty close to ramen. Should be labeled ‘sopa’ or something.” he said over his shoulder as he went into the kitchen area. Hanzo, having ample experience with freeze-dried ramen and the far cry it was from the ramen shops of Hanamura, set aside the relevant square block. There were a few more tins, one labeled ATUN BLANCO and the others CREMA DE MELOCOTON.

 

A can opener rattled across the tabletop toward him. He looked up in surprise to see the Soldier holding a fork and spoon out to him. He accepted them with a quiet “thank you” before opening up the can of cocido madrileño, sniffing at it dubiously before trying a spoonful. The chickpeas were thick and cold, but it was nowhere near as bland as he expected. The pork was actually some kind of smoked sausage, and it was not unpleasant.

 

The Soldier took out a comm identical to Hanzo’s and scanned it while he ate, reminding him to unclip his own from his belt and place it in a patch of sunlight splashing across the table to charge. After finishing the cocido, he turned to the ATUN BLANCO.

 

“Tuna fish,” said the Soldier without looking up. “There should be a couple of breadrolls in there, one for the tuna, the other for the jam. Just don’t open up the ones labelled ‘crack fuego’, those are the heaters.”

 

“Thank you,” replied Hanzo again as he opened up the vacuum-sealed package to reveal the squashed-looking rolls. They looked like muffins more than anything else.

 

“The Spaniards don’t do too badly,” the Soldier said, in a conversational tone. “The French ones are better, but Mercy finished off the last of those last night.”

 

Hanzo paused in the middle of stuffing tuna into the middle of one of the rolls. “A waste of resources.” he said, with a slight frown. “You did not expect to have to stay at all, and now you will have consumed five days’ worth of supplies.”

 

The Soldier looked up from his comm. Hanzo was momentarily arrested by the expressionless visor once more before he flicked his eyes a fraction of a degree higher.

 

“We were literally flying by the seat of our pants,” he rumbled. “Something was bound to go wrong. Five days’ worth of bad food is a small price to pay.” He paused for a moment. “Well, more like nine or ten days’. McCree’s been sneaking some with him when he was on the stakeout, and I’m not what you’d call dainty.”

 

Hanzo stared at the roll.

 

“Eat, before you’re wound up too tight to keep your strength up.”

 

Hanzo almost snorted at the tone the Soldier had struck. It was commanding, but softened in an almost--paternal?--sort of way, though it was far from the style of Hanzo’s own father. He was in charge, however, and so Hanzo ate, mechanically chewing the dry combo of bread and fish. He wished he had thought to prepare some tea; he could have used it to wet his mouth. Luckily, the Spanish Armed Forces had anticipated his needs. He found a small bottle of plain water as he idly rummaged through the MRE as a distraction from the man sitting across from him.

 

He was being far more civil than Hanzo had expected. Gruff, certainly, but there was none of the barely concealed hostility of the cowboy. The cowboy had said that he had joined Overwatch a month before; perhaps that meant that he was unaware of Hanzo’s history. If so, that would be almost criminally negligent. Hanzo had been a leader for a time, and he would have been livid if a murderer were thrust into his charge without his knowledge.

 

Of course, back then, it was rare for any of his subordinates to _not_ be a murderer.

 

And, incidentally, that was all the more reason for the Soldier to distrust him. The cowboy had told him that he had been fighting crime syndicates in the Americas. Why would he treat yakuza any different?

 

It was a good thing he had elected to eat the MRE. It was entirely possible to drug and poison canned and vacuum-sealed food, of course, but it was difficult, and that alone allowed Hanzo to finish his meal as doubt swirled in his mind.

 

He neatly stacked everything back in the box almost exactly as it had come. He moved to stand, but the Soldier looked up from his comm again and fixed him with the visor’s expressionless stare once more.

 

“When do you want to debrief?” he asked.

 

Hanzo fought down a sigh. “Now,” he said, straightening his back and folding his hands in his lap.

 

The Soldier nodded. “I understand,” he said slowly, almost carefully, “that you had a mental episode.” Hanzo set his jaw, and his fingers tightened around each other. “In the old Overwatch, you would have had access to a counselor, at the very least.”

 

In the old Overwatch, Hanzo amended mentally, he would not even be here.

 

“We obviously don’t have one, so let me just say: if you can’t talk about it, don’t talk about it. We’ll get through as much as we can, and leave anything else for another day.” He tilted his head slightly, as if studying Hanzo’s face.

 

Hanzo kept it carefully blank. “And if you suspect that I am withholding incriminating information?”

 

The Soldier’s head fell forward slightly, and he chuckled darkly. “Than let’s start with dealing with the elephant in the room.” Hanzo breathed in sharply, trying and mostly succeeding at keeping it silent. The Soldier looked up, and Hanzo kept his eyes on his receding hairline. “Winston and Genji himself briefed me. Never thought I’d find myself on a team with not one, but _two_ former yakuza.” He paused, as if considering, before saying, “Genji would like everyone to consider your pasts as between the two of you. Winston disagrees, as do I. It’s impossible for us to ignore that, but--” he admonished, holding up a large hand, despite Hanzo’s not having given any sign of interrupting, “--not for the reasons you might think.”

 

He absently rubbed his chin, despite it being covered with the thick plastic of the visor’s lower half. Hanzo could not help but wonder how he could stand to have it on outside of battle.

 

“Whatever Genji’s reasons are for wanting you to join and whatever your reasons are for indulging him are not my concern. What _is_ my concern is keeping all of us alive during a mission. Avoiding triggers for flashbacks or whatever the hell happened is one thing that will keep you and everyone around you out of the cold ground. Genji tells me you’ve been on the run for ten years from the yakuza, so I know you’re not weak, but obviously there is something that debilitates you. We need to avoid it in the future or it could put the rest of the team at unacceptable risk.” He stopped and seemed to study Hanzo once more. “And if it does put us at unacceptable risk, then you shouldn’t be here at all.”

 

Hanzo immediately recognized the out, whether or not the Soldier meant to provide it, and his heartbeat quickened.

 

It would be child’s play to twist this to his advantage, to exaggerate his weakness and make himself appear to be a liability. How indeed could Overwatch know that he would not run off to get drunk on some random rooftop after every mission? They did not know about Hanzo’s inability to use the dragons with a sword or sword-like weapon, nor did they know that he was not normally inconvenienced by it in the slightest. It would be easy to convince them that being so close to Genji, even through the proxy of his comrades, was enough to incapacitate him. Hanzo had played the part of a weak man to his advantage countless times before, in dozens of situations, and he could do it again and be rid of Overwatch forever.

 

But he could not be rid of Genji.

 

His thoughts, surging with lightning-like speed, stopped dead. _Be rid of Genji_. Even the notion was enough to send shame coursing through his stomach and chest. His brother, his victim, was alive. He owed a debt to him, a debt that would never be repaid, though he was duty-bound to give all he could.

 

Duty. It chilled and sobered him more effectively than icewater injected directly into his veins. Duty had ruled his life since before he drew his first breath. Duty to the Shimada-gumi, duty to the memory of his murdered brother, and now his duty to Overwatch, that Genji had sworn him to.

 

With a sinking heart, he realized that he must consider Overwatch with the same devotion that he had regarded his former clan. He would do well not to forget that.

 

He gave a small internal sigh before meeting the Soldier’s visor head-on. “I do not anticipate problems in the future,” he said quietly. “The circumstances that led to my--episode--have occurred only twice. They will not occur again.”

 

The Soldier was silent for a few moments before he nodded. “Let’s start at the beginning, just so we don’t leave anything out,” he said at last. He took a small pen-like device out of his pocket and put it in front of him in the table, pressing a small button on one side that lit a blinking red light. He then placed his comm in the middle of the table. It immediately projected a hologram of the warehouse and the surrounding area into the air, a few centimeters below eye-level. A red marker flashed slowly on top of the apartment building where Hanzo had kept his vigil, with a red dotted line tracing the circuitous route he had taken during his survey. “Everything was as you said it would be,” he said, leaning forward, “but go ahead and explain in your own words what you did, starting with your initial approach to the target.”

 

The Soldier did not speak much at first. He rotated and zoomed in and out of the holographic map as Hanzo described his movements and actions, only occasionally interrupting to ask for clarification or, surprisingly, to offer a tidbit of praise. He seemed to be especially appreciative of Hanzo’s thoroughness, grunting and nodding with vigor when Hanzo pointed out the three rooftops he landed the minidrone on before he brought it back to his own perch.

 

Hanzo was about to start describing the start of the battle when the Soldier raised his hand to stop him. “What exactly did McCree tell you about the team beforehand?” he asked. “All I caught from him when he was telling you about the attack was to cover the northeast alley.”

 

“He did not tell me anything about the team until afterwards,” Hanzo replied, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Not until he was bringing me here.”

 

The Soldier was quiet for a moment.

 

“Run that by me one more time. He didn’t tell you anything about the other teammates? Callsigns, roles, positions?”

 

“No.”

 

“Were you aware that this mission included a team?”

 

“Yes, the cow--Agent McCree told me--” Hanzo paused, thinking back. “Ah--he said _we are inbound_ , so I assumed there was a team. He did not explicitly mention a team until about 1900, when he assigned me to the northeast alley.”

 

“1900? Less than three hours before we got there?” There was an edge to the Soldier’s voice now, one that made Hanzo more guarded. “So when were you aware of the other team members’ presence?”

 

Hanzo couldn’t help the small scowl that curved his lips downward. “When--I believe his callsign is Reinhardt? I assume he was the one in the battle armor, who yelled and smashed his way in?” The Soldier nodded, the holograph’s light flashing dully in his visor. “That was my first indication of his presence. I did not know of anyone else until they spoke on the commlink.”

 

The Soldier leaned on the table on one elbow, rubbing his chin with his hand. “So when did you find out Mercy was there?”

 

Hanzo thought carefully. “She did not speak over the commlink until I reported Agent McCree’s injuries.”

 

“ _Goddamn._ ”

 

The expletive thundered out, and for the first time there was a touch of electronic reverb, as if whatever auditory system the mask employed to relay the Soldier’s voice could not handle the sudden volume of the outburst.

 

“And that didn’t strike you as strange?” the Soldier bit out.

 

Hanzo stared, an eyebrow raised. “Strange?”

 

The Soldier dropped his arm to the table. “You’re telling me that information about a mission, about your teammates, about your _medic_ , didn’t seem to be necessary?”

 

Hanzo gave a tiny shrug. “I am not in a position to judge what is strange or necessary. I have only been in contact with Agent McCree before this mission. I assumed he would give me any information that I was authorized to have, since he is my--” he couldn’t help but pause to swallow back his distaste for the term, “--my handler. If there was no information, it was because I could not be--that I was not authorized.”

 

There was a long silence.

 

“Alright,” said the Soldier, slowly, as if it was anything but. “So you got into position, essentially blind, before Reinhardt accessed the target.” A small group of differently colored markers made their way onto the holographic map. Hanzo watched with real interest, especially after he noted that one marker, colored yellow, was behaving very oddly, seeming to blip instantaneously from one position to another rather than smoothly move across the map as the others did. Another marker, a grey one, moved to the main entrance of the warehouse, followed closely by the yellow marker plus a red and a blue one, before the holographic door pixelated and disappeared, allowing the yellow, blue, and red markers to enter.

 

The Soldier called his attention away to the northeast alley, showing him how to add red X’s to the map to show how the Yoneyama had tried to get to the warehouse, and where they had met their ends. Hanzo was beginning to have trouble remembering exact details, but that did not seem to bother the Soldier much; he merely asked for his best estimation and for the most memorable or worrying tactics the Yoneyama had used, for future consideration.

 

They arrived at last to Hanzo’s ill-fated attempt to retrieve his arrows.

 

“It’s a goddamn miracle you had so many to begin with,” the Soldier groused darkly. “Winston and Genji told me you’re used to single target attacks. Why the hell did you have so much ammo?”

 

“My ‘single targets’ are often surrounded by many more incidental targets,” replied Hanzo concisely.

 

The Soldier waited to see if he would elaborate, but graciously moved on when he did not. “So you ran out of arrows. That’s definitely something we need to keep an eye on in the future. Now the question becomes: why didn’t you wait for backup? You knew McCree was on his way.”

 

The red visor was locked on him once more. Hanzo felt an urge to let his own gaze waver, to look away, but he met it squarely. “There was very little time. I had to take advantage of the lull while it lasted. I believe I said as much at the time.”

 

“Except there was no lull. It was a trap.”

 

Hanzo nodded.

 

The Soldier leaned back in his chair. “Well, the time has come,” he said heavily. “Do we stop here, or can you explain what happened?”

 

Hanzo hesitated a bare second. “Did--did the cowboy not explain?”

 

It was cowardly, and it was a bald attempt to get the Soldier to reveal what he wanted or hoped to hear, one that he did not expect to succeed. The Soldier obviously knew his business; nearly all his questions were carefully framed to avoid leading Hanzo on or revealing information that Hanzo had not already spoken of himself.

 

“He did,” replied the Soldier, without pretense. “What did you see happen?”

 

Hanzo’s body tried to sag, but he did not allow his shoulders to droop a single millimeter. “I do not know,” he began, “how much you know of the Shimada legacy.”

 

“I’ve seen Genji in battle,” the Soldier responded. “I’ve seen what he can do to whole groups of targets.”

 

Hanzo nodded, needled slightly by his brother’s revealing the secrets of the clan to outsiders, but there was hardly any clan anymore, and no ties to it anyhow. “I--had similar abilities with a sword, but more powerful. I am not,” he added swiftly and somewhat haughtily when he saw the Soldier lean forward with interest, “I am not able to use them any longer.” He waited a few moments to see if the Soldier would pry, but he did not, so he continued. “I was able to modify my--ability--into a long range version that uses my bow and arrows as a medium rather than a sword. Had there been more Yoneyama to battle, I might have been forced to use it; it is physically draining, so it is a last resort.”

 

“Yes, Genji doesn’t use his unless he absolutely needs to,” murmured the Soldier thoughtfully. Hanzo filed that bit of information away, a confirmation that his brother still felt something as human as fatigue. “But you had no arrows.”

 

“No.” Hanzo lowered his voice without knowing, his attention elsewhere. “I did not, and so I fell back on old tactics, old strategies, that I hoped never to use again.” More than hoped. Swore.

 

He had failed.

 

“Do you need to stop?” the Soldier’s voice was sharp, but underlined with something resembling concern.

 

Hanzo shook himself out. “I--I do not wish to go into detail,” he muttered.

 

The Soldier nodded. “Can you at least tell me what happened when McCree was injured?”

 

Hanzo cautiously probed the memory. He shook his head. “I do not know what to say.”

 

“In your own words, Mr. Shimada, and in your own time,” the Soldier said softly.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips, breathing deep in and out, attempting to center himself. To be honest, it was the memory of his double selves, the feeling of both Storm Bows in his hands, the extraordinary and disorienting depth perception that came from seeing the same scene from two or three meters apart instead of the customary seven or eight centimeters, and the bloody deaths of the Yoneyama that formed the core of the experience. That he had fled from and ultimately drowned in sake and plum wine. The cowboy had very nearly shared their fate, but in the end, by the grace of Genji’s association, he had been spared. Hanzo worked to wall the memory of the cowboy off from the rest of the wretched experience, so as to better examine it, to give the Soldier what he required.

 

It was not easy, but after two or three tense minutes he took a deep breath and said, a touch shakily. “He came from behind.” He bit the inside of his cheek, willed his voice to steady, and continued. “I disarmed and immobilized him. I was still--” He wavered for a split second. “--I did not come to myself until I realized he was an Overwatch agent.”

 

He waited to see what more the Soldier would ask, if he would probe further, if he would catch the subtle phrasing.

 

“And after you realized?”

 

Hanzo was not sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed.

 

“I knew that I was on the verge of--becoming compromised. I did not wish to do so there.” He waited again, for the Soldier to question his motives, but he did not. “I have a--protocol, I suppose. It is effective. I only had to deliver Agent McCree to his comrades before I could implement it.”

 

The Soldier held up his hand again. “That’s enough for me,” he said. “Unless you feel like you have anything to add?”

 

Hanzo shook his head, thankful that the Soldier did not require an explanation of his “protocol”. The doctor had probably shared her findings by now, anyway.

 

“Then I can tell you, Mr. Shimada, that McCree said pretty much the same thing. He came up behind you, saw you, uh, neutralize your opponents--” _Neutralize_. That was a detached enough term. “--and then before he knew what was happening, you’d broken his wrist and knee.”

 

The Soldier leaned forward. “Mr. Shimada,” he said heavily, making sure Hanzo was looking him straight in the visor. He ran his fingers through his white hair, making it stick up even more. Hanzo imagined a grimace or lips pressed into a thin line under the mask, to match his tone as he said, “I don’t mind telling you what it looked like when you dumped a half-broken cowboy on the ground and then legged it. It was fishy as hell, and I think you’ll understand what went through my mind. I think you expected me, all of us, to think that, given how hard it was for Genji and McCree to convince you to come in. Frankly, if Tracer hadn’t been bringing in the transport, my first instinct would have been to send her after you to see if you had gone rogue.” Hanzo nodded gravely. It was obvious what Overwatch should have thought. The real mystery was why they had not.

 

“As it was, as soon as Mercy got McCree fixed up, he admitted he was the one at fault.”

 

Hanzo expected something of the sort must have happened. It was almost a given, since Overwatch had not immediately abandoned him or hunted him down, but it was still a surprise to hear it. The concept of the cowboy admitting a mistake was just as unexpected here as it had been the night before when the cowboy himself confessed that he had been wrong to keep Hanzo out of the loop.

 

But then again, thought Hanzo, reining in his astonishment, perhaps the cowboy was merely covering his bases in the car. The Soldier was shocked at how little the cowboy had told Hanzo about the mission. Perhaps he had expected that fact to come up in the debriefing, and was owning his actions beforehand in an attempt to appear contrite. Genji had been listening in, after all, a witness to corroborate his “regret” when the full extent of his negligence came to light.

 

That did not completely cover why the cowboy had immediately admitted his error in the alley, though. Hanzo would still have expected him to use that to discredit him, when Hanzo himself had disappeared and could not defend himself. It would have been the perfect opportunity.

 

Perhaps the Soldier had expected so, too. “You didn’t expect him to fess up,” he said. A statement, not a question.

 

Hanzo considered his response carefully. The holographic map rotated silently between them, sweeping the red X’s through the air like spiky stars through an oddly rectangular galaxy. The refrigerator broke the silence with a soft mechanical hum. Finally, he slowly said, “I did not expect him to defend my actions in any way.”

 

“There’s plenty to defend,” the Soldier said brusquely, then he sighed and cleared his throat. “Do you feel that McCree has been withholding information during your previous missions?”

 

Hanzo almost laughed. Withholding information? The cowboy had been eager to overshare information, of a certain kind. But that was not what the Soldier was asking, so he merely shook his head and said, “No. All my missions up until now have been reconnaissance, and I was provided with all the necessary information and resources.” A thought occurred to him, and his eyebrows pulled together.

 

He regretted it a moment later. The Soldier seemed to have caught the small movement. “But?” he prodded.

 

Hanzo almost sat back, exasperated at his lack of control.

 

But the thought that had occurred to him could explain much.

 

“During my previous missions,” he said at last, “Agent McCree has been thorough. He has even warned me to be more rigorous at times, especially in matters of safety.” He was thinking especially of Watchpoint: Niigata, when he had insisted that Hanzo check to make sure he was secure. The cowboy had never disguised his disdain, of course, and many of his orders seemed to be given to annoy Hanzo more than safeguard or help him, but he had to admit that whether or not he was annoyed while following them, they technically did make him more secure. “This mission was the first where other team members were exposed to me. Perhaps he believed he was protecting you all.”

 

The Soldier snorted. “Protecting us? If things had gone different, his little omissions would’ve resulted in thirty-plus Yoneyama pouring through that alley and right into us.”

 

“Yes,” Hanzo allowed, “but no sword is as deadly as the chink in one’s own armor.”

 

“You think he thought you were more dangerous than the Yoneyama?”

 

“He need only look at Genji to know it.”

 

It was surprising how easily the admission came. It fell from his lips like a Freudian slip, but he made no attempt whatsoever to stop it. The Soldier already knew, anyway, so why should he bother? It did prompt a change in the air, however, as though static was suddenly building in the air that could be discharged if he so much as moved. His skin itched to do just that, but the feeling remained even as he shifted in his seat, ever-so-slightly.

 

The Soldier was silent and still for a long time. Hanzo was not sure how long, but it felt like several minutes passed before the Soldier reached out with one hand and tapped the comm, allowing the holograph to fade away into nothing. Then, prompting Hanzo to narrow his eyes, he picked up the recorder, turned off the blinking red light, and threw it over his shoulder, sending it clattering down the empty hallway. Hanzo watched it disappear from view with trepidation.

 

When the Soldier spoke, his voice was quiet, yet the rough edges were even more pronounced. “You might think you’re the most dangerous person on the team, but you’d be wrong.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers intertwined. The table sagged a little under the weight of just his upper body. “I don’t know how much you know about the end of Overwatch, but suffice to say, it was inevitable. You just can’t have that many dangerous people cooped up together without it all _blowing up_.”

 

His voice was bitter as loss.

 

“People know about the big explosion at the end, but what they don’t know, or what they choose to forget, are all the smaller ones that led up to it. There were plenty of _incidents_ that ranged from McCree’s shattered knee up to and _beyond_ Genji, Mr. Shimada. Genji is lucky to be alive. There are those who would be better off dead.” The Soldier stopped. He did not make a sound, but Hanzo could see his broad chest expanding as he sucked in a deep breath, as if to steady himself. His voice was louder, but more tightly controlled when he continued. “McCree’s a fine one to talk about ‘too dangerous’, anyway. There’s more than one reason Winston put him in charge of you, and Blackwatch was _not_ number one. His background and yours are more similar than he’s probably admitted to you. In fact--” his hand darted to his comm, and he made some swift, stabbing motions at the screen. Hanzo’s comm chimed softly in its patch of sunshine. “--since I can guarantee he hasn’t, there’s his personnel file, so you know who you’re dealing with and _why_ his little stunt was so poorly conceived in every way.”

 

The Soldier stood then, scooping up his mug as he did so. He stared at Hanzo for a few seconds before saying, “Winston knows how little you want to be here, Mr. Shimada. Genji’s pulled a stunt here, too. You might think your ‘provisional membership’ is for our protection, but you should know that it’s just as much for yours as well.” Then he spun on his heel and stalked off into the hallway, bending to retrieve the recorder before turning into one of the barracks and slamming the door behind him with a loud bang.

 

Hanzo watched him go, his eyebrows knitted together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soldier: 76? More like Soldier: Grumpypants.
> 
> I feel like I may be moving things a little slowly here, but things will pick up some in the next few chapters, I swear.
> 
> I'm pleased to say that [mrrjm-blog](http://mrrjm-blog.tumblr.com/) has asked to sponsor this story's translation into Chinese! Here is [Chapter 1](http://nrober005.lofter.com/post/394b10_e4c6d8a) and here is [Chapter 2](http://nrober005.lofter.com/post/394b10_e628a6a) if you are interested! It was quite the surprise, but a welcome one! Thank you!!!


	7. Under the Cedars

However Hanzo expected the debriefing to go, he certainly did not expect it to end this way.

 

Silence rang through the dining area as the echoes of the Soldier’s slammed door died away. Hanzo stared after him, nonplussed.

 

After a while, shaking himself, he looked over to the comm, studying the glare on its darkened screen for a moment before he scooped it up and stood. He dropped the MRE’s remains in the kitchen’s trash can and made his way towards the stairs, retreating back to the barrack. His mind whirred as he tried to pick this latest Overwatch agent and his words apart, glancing at his closed door as he passed. Up until the end, the Soldier had lived up to his callsign without reservation, intent on doing as professional a job as possible. It seemed, however, that he did have some reservations after all, and he was not afraid to point them out, even to a former yakuza half-agent.

 

One thing was certain, though: the Soldier was more familiar with Overwatch than his recent membership implied.

 

He descended the stairs slowly, mindful that someone could have gone into the basement while he and the Soldier debriefed, but he met no one. The barrack door was wide open as he had left it. He elected to keep it open still, still making his position known to the other inhabitants of the building, and he made a quick search for any obvious signs of intrusion before standing in the middle of the room, turning the comm over in his hands, pondering the new information it contained.

 

He set it down on the bunk, facedown, and moved away.

 

He went to the plastic bag that contained the salvaged arrowheads and fletching from his destroyed arrows, along with the two leftover cartons of sake. He picked up both cartons, feeling the heavy liquid slosh around inside for a moment. Burying the impulse for a quick swig, he stashed them away under the bunk. Who knew when he’d have another opportunity to get more? The recent raid, the increased Yoneyama activity, and the probable contact at the harbor meant that it was not advisable to be in public right now, not even for a quick liquor run. He might have to ration until he was allowed to leave the area.

 

He grabbed the bag and tossed it next to the cello case, kneeling next to them as he gave the salvaged components one more inspection before he began reassembling them with shafts from the case. He frowned as he did so, in concentration and irritation as he noted the small number he would be able to make.

 

His arrows were “handcrafted” in the sense that he designed and assembled them himself, but the real key in their manufacture were his 3D printers. Nanocarbon, silicon, and steel left a far less conspicuous papertrail than arrowheads. The first four years of Hanzo’s exile had been more or less dedicated to acquiring funds for the four printers hidden among his caches, each within a day’s hurried travel no matter where he was in the country. The four-year gap had proved serendipitous. The Shimada-gumi had become severely weakened in the meantime, with many of the elders killed and the rest scattered in an attempt to protect themselves from whatever in-fighting or rival clans had decimated them in Hanzo’s absence. All the better for Hanzo--it was far easier to hunt them down one-by-one, when they should have pulled together to meet their enemies as one.

 

However, since being in Overwatch’s--“employ”--he had visited only one of his printers. It was secreted in the foothills overlooking the depopulated downtown core of Daisen, coincidentally and conveniently close to where Genji had hunted him down six weeks ago. The cowboy had not commented on Hanzo’s quick detour before embarking on his first set of missions, but it had been plain from the start he was hawkishly watching Hanzo’s every move, and Hanzo was loathe to reveal the locations of any more of his most precious equipment.  Until the battle his luck had held and he had not needed to resupply his weaponry, but now he was faced with the choice of traveling north some 350 kilometers or finding some blackmarket printer closer by that could be trusted not to retain a copy of his 3D models--all to avoid revealing the location of his Kitakata cache, a mere 150 kilometers away. A headache to replace the one he should be having from his blackout.

 

Hanzo growled a little under his breath as he began to weigh his options, but his attention was caught by the sudden bark of the Soldier’s voice as it filtered down the stairway and through his open door. “McCree!”

 

Hanzo stiffened, his ears instinctively straining to hear. The safehouse’s construction was solid enough to mask all but the faintest sound of what must be the Soldier’s heavy footsteps on the floor above as he marched forward three steps and barked “Mess hall, now. Mercy, you’re on lookout until further notice.” Then more barely discernable footsteps that were all the Soldier’s.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips as he stared at the spiral fletching he had been carefully screwing onto the end of a shaft. It felt as though the ceiling was suddenly pressing down under the weight of what was happening upstairs, and a tight foreboding tension gripped his chest.

 

It was disconcertingly familiar, but it took a few seconds to place it. His mind finally snapped to the tatami mats covering the polished wooden floors of Shimada Castle as they vibrated under the heavy treads of his mother and father, and later on the elders, as they strode through the passageways to deal with Genji’s latest antics.

 

Why was he thinking of such a thing now? It was strange, even for his overcomplicated mind, to make such a connection. Hanzo gave a short huff of embarrassment as he spun the completed arrow in one hand distractedly. The familiar dread settled dense and leaden at the base of his chest. Genji’s misdeeds had always slid off his back and onto Hanzo’s. After telling Genji off, their mother thundering and biting while their father stood behind smiling conspiratorially over her shoulder, they would usually come in search of Hanzo, his mother to bemoan the state of her second son, his father to clap a cold hand on his back as he silently appealed to him to endure for his brother’s sake, both reinforcing how it all, ultimately, rested on his shoulders.

 

If they could find him. At the first sign of trouble he had usually taken any excuse he could to escape to the grounds--such excuses had become much rarer as he grew up, but never the urge to find a place under the open sky and in relative silence, far from words and responsibility that would ultimately prove to be misplaced.

 

That old urge was rising in him now. He snorted irritably, tossing the arrow into the cello case and pinching the bridge of his nose. The more he thought about it, the more the connection made sense. The cowboy was about to be reprimanded, and Hanzo, as his underling, could expect to bear the brunt of his displeasure. He already piled enough vitriol on Hanzo on Genji’s behalf--it would be easy enough to pour on still more when the injury was personal.

 

He glanced at the comm, lying facedown in a shallow depression in the threadbare blankets. If there were a time to possibly learn about the cowboy’s weaknesses--

 

\--but then again.

 

Hanzo stood, habitually brushing off his _hakama_ before making for the open doorway, but he paused on the threshold. He craved the open sky, but was it an unacceptable risk to go outside? The high walls and cedars surrounding the safehouse effectively screened the grounds from the street and neighbors, but the Yoneyama had just demonstrated how unwise it could be to carelessly reveal habitation.

 

Hanzo pondered the dilemma for a few seconds, but the Soldier’s voice, growling and rumbling and steadily rising in volume, made up his mind for him. He quickly climbed the stairs, trying to stay out of sight of the dining area as he moved swiftly across the short distance between the stairway and the main entrance of the safehouse. It was locked with a heavy deadbolt attached to an electronic keypad; Hanzo impatiently punched in the code while trying to ignore the words echoing down the hallway.

 

“--like some damned jackass! Thirty of those bastards, McCree! _Thirty!_ How d’you think that would’ve ended? Reinhardt and Torbjörn taken out from behind, Yoneyama _pouring_ in, the rest of us caught with our pants down inside their own depot--”

 

The deadbolt slid open and Hanzo hefted the large door, some artsy monstrosity that mimicked the residential doorways of the surrounding neighborhood but was obviously thick steel that required a bit of effort to move, open and closed, cutting off the Soldier’s diatribe as he darted onto the small, almost non-existent concrete porch.

 

He gave a small sigh as he listened to the deadbolt shoot home behind him, then squinted up at the dark blue sky, trying to determine the time. It had been sometime in the afternoon when he had gone upstairs to eat. Now the daylight was waning, the heat of the day winding down into a pleasantly cool evening.

 

He stalked out onto the concrete patio that fronted the safehouse, fallen needles and leaves crunching wetly under his bare metal feet. The crowns of the cedars were managing to catch a few rays of the unseen sun, but otherwise everything was cast in shadow. The trees themselves ran in two offset, orderly rows that followed the rectangular layout of the walls surrounding the property. Their numerous, spindly branches began about two meters off the ground, the densely packed needles acting as a barrier to largely shield the safehouse from view of the street and the neighboring houses. Hanzo stepped underneath one of the trees of the inner row and considered the lines-of-sight before turning and kneeling, facing the safehouse. The thick trunk alone would have been sufficient to keep him hidden from the street even without the wall, and the branches blocked out all but a few bright patches overhead.

 

Hanzo felt moisture seep into his _hakama_ where his knees pressed the fabric into the thick mat, with a slight, bitter smell of rotting foliage in the air and the shrill hum of cicadas coming from all around. It was a far cry from the silent, meticulously-tended castle gardens, blue sky clearly visible between the delicate branches of the cherry trees laden with blossoms.

 

Still, it was almost picturesque in its own way. Hanzo could imagine ignoring the cinderblock wall behind him and the imposing safehouse before him in favor of a fanciful deep forest glade, if it was not necessary to monitor both for any movement with strained eyes and ears. Of course, the Soldier had assigned the doctor as a “lookout”, but Hanzo did not know where or how. A drone, perhaps, or robotic sentries around the perimeter when they had set up shop to wait Hanzo out. He was not trusted enough to know.

 

He wished, a little forlornly, that he could have brought the arrow components out with him, but it was enough of a gamble to simply exist outdoors. Even before the raid he had considered being out here too dangerous, which was a shame--the elongated property would have lent itself well as an improvised archery range.

 

Instead, he placed his palms on his thighs and took control of his breathing, setting a slow rhythm for the air pouring in and out. He concentrated on keeping as silent as possible, fusing the exercise with a heightened awareness of the noise around him, searching for anything slicing through the background noise. He allowed his eyes to half-close, settling his gaze on the safehouse.

 

He did not expect it to be long before the door swung open to reveal a scruffy, red-faced cowboy, mouth twisted in an open-mouthed snarl.

 

It was not very stimulating, kneeling at the base of that tree and simply breathing, but it was preferable to whatever was happening inside. After a time, it was almost possible to forget the whole business and simply appreciate the rustling and creaking of the cedars’ crowns as they flexed in a slight breeze high above, the occasional hum of a passing vehicle, and bursts of birdsong and the chirping vocalizations of squirrels as the creatures began to settle in preparation for the oncoming night. Hanzo attentively listened for crunching footsteps or the click of firearms through it all, but his lungs and heart relaxed into the slow rhythm he set for them in the relative silence.

 

The click of the deadbolt was audible even over the four or five meters between Hanzo and the door, a detail he automatically filed away as a potential warning or prompt for anyone monitoring the main entrance as he stiffened just as automatically. The door opened slowly, and it did indeed reveal the cowboy, dressed in dark blue jeans and a red and white plaid flannel shirt with long sleeves rolled up to the elbow and partially untucked to ineffectually hide the belt buckle gleaming on his waist. His hair, uncorralled for once by the hat held limply at the cowboy’s side, framed his face, surprisingly long and lanky and dark in the shade.

 

Hanzo had, once again, expected anger to be contorting the cowboy’s face, and once again he was surprised. There was a strange mix of determination and nervousness badly hidden just under the surface of his eyes when they found his own. They stared at each other for a few moments before the cowboy stepped out of the safehouse, letting the door swing closed on its own with a loud thud. Hanzo could not help a slight twitch of an eyebrow as the noise bounced off the surrounding walls a couple of times, but the cowboy paid little heed as he ambled slowly forward, coming to a stop a couple of meters away, just shy of where Hanzo would have been forced to start looking up at him.

 

The cowboy studied his face for a few moments. Hanzo kept it as blank as possible.

 

The cowboy took in a deep breath, let it out in a whoosh, and turned away slightly, pressing his hat to his hip with a metal hand while running the other whole hand through his hair. He shook his head slightly and bit his bottom lip. Hanzo watched it all with slightly narrowing eyes. Finally, he turned back and, gesturing at the ground with his free hand, said, “Mind if I sit for a spell?”

 

Hanzo blinked slowly. The cowboy made no move, even as the silence dragged on for a few beats. An actual request, then. Unusual. He shook his head slightly, and the cowboy nodded back as he dropped down to the ground. At first he let his legs carelessly sprawl out in front of him, but after a moment he seemed to reconsider and folded them into a loose cross-legged position, his hat in his lap and his hands on his knees, despite how uncomfortable the position must have been as his jeans rode up slightly to reveal the cowboy boots.

 

Hanzo wrinkled his nose slightly at the garish, unpolished spurs, a needless and noisy feature--but no, he realized, the cowboy had made no noise save for crushing the detritus underfoot. Were these spurs purely for show?

 

He shook himself out of his pointless musings, refocusing on the cowboy. He was picking at a small pile of needles by his right knee, rubbing individual needles between thumb and forefinger before letting them fall back to the ground, head bowed as if the task merited all his concentration. The scent of cedar rose from the crushed needles, a welcome change from the wet rot, even if Hanzo could scarcely appreciate it while he waited for the cowboy to reveal his intentions.

 

It took a good long while, a few endless minutes, before the cowboy finally cleared his throat. “I guess you got some readin’ done after the debriefin’,” he said, without looking up.

 

Hanzo could not help knitting his eyebrows together. “Reading?” he asked, taking care to keep his voice level, almost monotone.

 

The cowboy snorted loudly, still picking at the ground. “Or ‘reviewed team data’ or ‘briefed yourself’ or whatever you wanna call readin’ my file.”

 

“I did not.”

 

Hanzo smoothed his face back into a blank mask as the cowboy’s head snapped up, his dark eyes widened. “What?”

 

“I did not review the file.”

 

There were a couple of beats of silence, the cowboy merely staring, in shock perhaps.

 

“Why?” he asked at last. “I woulda expected you t’want all the dirt you could find on me.”

 

Hanzo permitted himself to raise an eyebrow slightly. So there was “dirt” in the file. He had been right not to read it, then. It would only have added to the cowboy’s grievances against him. Of course, if he could have read it anonymously, he certainly would have, but it had been sent and received by Overwatch devices--the AI would know if it was accessed. The cowboy would surely check with her; he would not take Hanzo at his word.

 

But what to say for now? He looked around slightly, wondering what was appropriate to say while sitting in the relative open like this. Trusting in the constant drone of the cicadas to mask their voices, he settled on, “You say he joined a month ago, correct?” At the cowboy’s slight nod, “He did not consult anyone. I am unsure if he is authorized to do such a thing, after so little time.”

 

The cowboy’s lips curled into a strange smile. “Well, shit. I dunno, either, t’be honest,” he muttered, tone thoughtful with a strange edge of mirth. “I guess he must be, since he sent it in the first place.” Hanzo barely had time to consider the implications of _that_ before the cowboy’s face dropped into a serious expression, his eyes piercing. “But you don’ really need any more dirt, do ya?”

 

Hanzo kept his face immobile, but he could feel his mind kick into high gear with an almost audible _click_ behind his eyes. Dirt? On the cowboy? Hanzo had no idea what he was talking about.

 

Was he referring to the price on his head? It would be an odd non-sequitur, but Hanzo was at a loss to think of anything else. He had assumed it to be an open secret of little worth. He had discovered the bounty almost immediately when he had performed a quick search for information on Overwatch and its personnel during his stopover in Daisen. Jesse McCree was one of the most expensive criminals in the world, which would have interested Hanzo greatly if the cowboy were not an associate-by-duress, and if the United States’ haphazard bounty system could be trusted to properly distinguish between the criminal and the accused. Overwatch apparently did not trust it, and Hanzo certainly did not, either. The Shimada-gumi had “requested” the placement of several bounties for many of its enemies in America through its government contacts, and it had mattered little if there was an official criminal history or not. Hanzo would probably have an American bounty himself if his betrayal were not such an embarrassment for the clan.

 

So, if not the bounty, what?

 

Hanzo mentally shrugged. If the cowboy believed he had something, perhaps he did, but he sincerely doubted it amounted to anything. Sixty million dollars was nothing compared to being Genji’s comrade. What could possibly tempt him to ignore the debt he owed there? But he might as well try to find out what the cowboy was talking about, if he could.

 

“I do not know what you are referring to,” he said, making sure to lose some of the monotone in favor of a slightly confused edge.

 

The cowboy set his jaw for a moment. “Don’ go bullshittin’ me, Shimada,” he said in a low growl. “You told 76 everythin’ else--why wouldn’ you go the full mile, especially about _that?_ ”

 

Hanzo could feel his eyebrows creep together again. So it had something to do with the debriefing? Under the hot glare of the cowboy, he quickly ran over his entire conversation with the Soldier, trying to find what he had apparently left unsaid. The Soldier had been thorough about everything from the time Hanzo had arrived, to his surveillance pattern to the attack itself to all the cowboy’s negligence--

 

\--but no, _not_ all the cowboy’s negligence.

 

His expression cleared. Of course. Hanzo had omitted the detail where he had attempted to warn the cowboy about the likely schedule of the Yoneyama, a key piece of information that could have cut their numbers in half at the beginning of the battle, as well as greatly delayed the arrival of reinforcements. It was the cowboy’s fault that Overwatch had dropped in just in time to find themselves sandwiched between defenders and attackers, an unenviable position. It occurred to Hanzo that had they arrived a few minutes later still, both shifts of Yoneyama guards would have been clustered around the warehouse, possibly able to retreat into and double the fortifications of the warehouse, and who knew how that would have affected the final result.

 

Hanzo had not failed to mention this to the Soldier by choice--it had simply not occurred to Hanzo to say anything about it, possibly due to his disturbed state of mind, and the Soldier’s questions had not moved in that direction. Perhaps he, too, had been distracted, by Hanzo knowing next to nothing about the team.

 

If this was the “dirt”, then it truly amounted to nothing--it was merely a small addendum on the rest of the cowboy’s actions. Hanzo was surprised the cowboy thought it of any note, to be honest. Perhaps the Soldier had been pushed to the very edge by Hanzo’s report--he had certainly seemed to be building towards some near-apocalyptic rage when Hanzo had fled outside--and the cowboy had only barely avoided some enormous consequence by the skin of his teeth.

 

More likely, Hanzo decided, the cowboy suspected that he had been searching for something to discredit him, something he could blackmail him with. The thought almost made him snort. What use would that be? Overwatch was already overlooking a sixty million dollar bounty--in the face of that, what could Hanzo, half-agent and murderer, possibly say or do that could shake that apparently unflappable trust the organization had in the cowboy? However--

 

Hanzo felt his back loosen marginally, noting that he had unconsciously began to curl forward slightly as he had been thinking. But now he could relax, just a little, because now he had a fix on the cowboy’s odd behavior from the moment Hanzo had dumped him next to his comrades at the warehouse.

 

After the near-disastrous battle, he knew that Hanzo’s report would inevitably result in short-term censure, but his position in Overwatch was secure overall, so he had feigned nervousness in an attempt to see what Hanzo would do if he was under the impression that he had some leverage against him. If Hanzo were more easily duped, he might have pounced on that leverage and tried to use it to some end or other, but the cowboy could then reveal the attempt in order to cast doubt on Hanzo himself, if more doubt was possible.

 

Clever. Very clever. Hanzo could barely refrain from shaking his head wryly as he evenly returned the cowboy’s glare. When he had first met him, it had been hard to believe that he had been part of a black ops organization for any amount of time, but Hanzo had been wise not to let his wild, ruffled, unkempt appearance deceive him. He was turning out to be something of an opponent.

 

Hanzo felt his lips curve ever so slightly at the thought. An opponent, but in a game of what, exactly? Hanzo had nothing to lose except his life, after all, and even that already belonged to another, if only he would exercise that right.

 

Whatever the game was, though, Hanzo had little interest in playing.

 

He made a slight show of relaxing, arranging his knees into a slightly more comfortable position before speaking. “Agent McCree, it would change nothing if I went to the Soldier to amend my report,” he said, letting his face drop into an almost bored expression.

 

The cowboy, on the other hand, looked surprised. “What d’you mean by that, exactly?” he asked after a moment.

 

Hanzo gave a tiny sigh. The cowboy was his handler, so if he wanted to continue the game, Hanzo would be forced to participate, even minimally--but surely both men had better things to do with their time. Hanzo considered for a moment, before looking around them. The air was beginning to chill and leach the warmth from his skin as their surroundings darkened. If the branches above did not block the view, the first stars might have been visible in the blueblack sky. “How openly may I speak here? Are we secure?”

 

The cowboy frowned, looking a bit thrown by the question. “We’re--secure,” he said. “Mercy and Athena’re keepin’ an eye on the drones.” A look of understanding dawned then, and he lowered his voice almost to a growl again. “So say what you gotta say. Nothin’ and no one will overhear.”

 

Hanzo rather doubted that, but the alternative was going back into the safehouse, where the Soldier or the doctor were much more likely to overhear what, in the end, only the cowboy needed to know.

 

“You do not trust me,” he said without preamble. “You believe Overwatch should not trust me, that much is obvious. Did the Soldier tell you that I agree with you?” The cowboy sucked in a breath through his nose, which was all Hanzo allowed before he continued. Best to speak quickly, now.

 

“I defended your actions to him. You wished to protect your teammates from me, a proven danger. You are right to do this. I would do the same in your place. I would, perhaps, do more.” The cowboy’s eye twitched, and Hanzo smiled wanly. “In the end, however, it is unnecessary. There is absolutely nothing for me to gain by betraying Overwatch. There might be some riches, of course, but what use are riches without honor? And there is only one source of honor since I raised my--raised arms against Genji. And he will provide it, once he comes to his senses.”

 

“What?” the cowboy muttered, face closed, eyes narrowed.

 

Hanzo did not bother to hide his sigh. “The doctor tells me,” he said quietly, “that for whatever reason, he has only recently been blinded by this idea that forgiveness will suffice. It will not. You must only wait for his vision to clear, as I am.

 

“You worry for his safety when it does, of course, but he has defeated me each time we have met since he revealed himself. I have no doubt he will again, when he is ready.” The words were only a little forced, despite Hanzo’s pride. Even now, it sought to rise up and rage against the notion of his brother besting him, a bitter reminder that the past was not truly past. “We only need to tolerate each other for a little while, cowboy. I truly do not expect it to be long. There is nothing to do except indulge him until then. If he wishes for me to serve Overwatch while I wait for him to remember his right, so be it.”

 

He paused, considering. “Also,” he mused slowly, “It was Overwatch that saved his life. I assume so, from what the doc--from what Mercy has said?” The cowboy nodded slowly. “Then I owe Overwatch, regardless of Genji’s wishes. Because of them, Genji lives, and so does this chance at redemption.”

 

At the word _redemption_ , the cowboy stiffened, and his flesh hand went to cover the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. Hanzo gave no sign that he noticed, keeping his eyes fixed on the cowboy’s face. “Why tell me this?” he breathed out, as if he could not help himself.

 

Hanzo huffed. “You fear my intentions, for Genji and Overwatch. This has been clear from the beginning. So there they are, laid bare.”

 

“And you think I’ll just step--” the cowboy seemed almost to choke on his words, but Hanzo would continue if he would not.

 

“Step aside?” The cowboy _flinched_ , and Hanzo, in spite of himself, rolled his eyes. “ _Yes_ , cowboy. I believe even you can appreciate the convenience, even the elegance, of allowing a problem to resolve itself.”

 

Silence. The cowboy kept his hand over his pocket, staring, almost squinting at Hanzo through the deepening gloom.

 

Hanzo met his gaze for a few moments, but quickly tired of whatever test of wills it represented, especially in the near-darkness as the sun sank below the unseen horizon beyond the trees and walls of the safehouse. He closed his eyes for a moment, then stood. He had said everything he must; there was no need to linger in the cowboy’s company. His thighs protested a bit as blood rushed into the portions that had been pressed into the unforgiving metal of his prosthetics for however long, but he ignored them as he made to pass the cowboy and go back into the safehouse.

 

The cowboy, however, raised a metal hand, palm outward, beckoning Hanzo to stop.

 

He hefted himself to his feet, grimacing and shaking out his thick legs and bending to retrieve his hat, which had fallen as he stood. He turned to Hanzo. His face and beard were nearly invisible in the darkness, thrown into deeper shadow by his lanky hair. The streetlamps outside the wall flickered on, shining enough light through the cedars to glimmer in his near-black eyes like small flames.

 

“How soon d’you want t’go on another mission?” he drawled.

 

Hanzo stared at him. “What?”

 

“If you’re like me,” the cowboy said, with a strange hesitance on the word _me_ , “sittin’ around after a bad mission gets to ya. So when would you want t’go on another one?”

 

“I--” Hanzo pursed his lips. It was a strange question. If there was a mission, it was not a matter of _wanting_ or _not wanting_ , at least in the Shimada-gumi and, he assumed, in Overwatch. If anything, it was a matter of him having just disappeared for three days on a deliberately-induced, alcohol-fueled blackout, and how long Overwatch would wait before they trusted him with any amount of responsibility. “I am fully recovered and able to go, if that is what you mean.”

 

“Not exactly,” the cowboy said with a faint chuckle, “but I’ll take that t’mean ASAP. Tomorrow, even?”

 

Hanzo looked away, more to buy time to think for a moment than anything. His eyes settled on the dark and uninviting windows of the safehouse. “You are all leaving tomorrow?” The cowboy nodded, long hair swaying. “Then there is no reason for me to stay, and it will be wise to move away from Yoneyama territory.”

 

The cowboy nodded again, and, with a glint in his eye behind the glimmer from the streetlights, “Oh, we can _definitely_ put some distance between them and you. How does India sound?”

 

Hanzo only lifted a brow, but he was startled. “India?”

 

The cowboy shrugged and kicked at the ground with the pointy toe of his boot. “More reconnaissance, for the most part. It’ll be a little more involved and high level than what you’ve been doin’ around here, but nothin’ you haven’ done before, I bet. Keep you busy for a couple of weeks at least, probably.” The cowboy waited a few moments for a response before adding, “It ain’ nothin’ last minute like this whole shitstorm. We gotta lot more info for ya t’work with, for one. Winston’s been trying t’get someone out there for a while, but things kept popping up.”

 

Hanzo digested the information for a few beats before nodding slowly. “If that is where I am required.”

 

“Pack your bags, then, Shimada. I’ll see if I can get you the details before you hit the hay.” The cowboy turned away and walked with long strides towards the safehouse. Hanzo watched him, frowning, before following. The cowboy punched in the code and pulled the door open, and, strangely enough, waved Hanzo through before him. Hanzo complied, wariness building.

 

He had just done the equivalent of flipping the board of the game they had been playing, and while he had certainly hoped for a cessation of play, it felt for all the world like the cowboy was goodnaturedly picking the pieces off the floor, dusting them off, and dropping them into their box, only to offer some other game. It perturbed him, to be honest, and he had a sudden burning desire to return to the barrack and think over this latest, unexpectedly frank discussion to find whatever angle the cowboy was playing at now. He headed straight for the stairway, but the cowboy cleared his throat as he flipped the switch on for the lights, brightening the long hallway. “Wait up a sec, Shimada.”

 

Hanzo stopped with his foot on the first step, turning slightly.

 

The cowboy ran a hand through his hair before placing his hat on his head. Strange, thought Hanzo, how he took it off outside and put it on inside. But the cowboy looked a little nervous once more, perhaps even at a loss for words even though he had been the one to ask him to stop. He bit his lip for a moment before he said, “76 forwarded all the current agents’ files to ya, not just mine. Everyone but Genji’s. There’s--a lotta reasoning behind that.” Hanzo set his jaw and did his best to look neutral. The cowboy, keeping to his sudden and peculiar new behavior, hurried on with awkward tact. “It’s t’make sure you’re prepared for any more last minute missions. So read up on ‘em--includin’ mine. There’ll be a lot in there you’ll find interestin’.”

 

Hanzo could not help but exhale forcefully. This was a complete reversal from earlier, and Hanzo did not like it one bit.

 

The cowboy _smiled,_ awkwardly. “We, uh--the rest of us will be eatin’ here pretty soon. We’ll be cleared out by about eight or so, just so you know.”

 

Well, that was more true to form, warning him to stay away from everyone.

 

“Unless you’d--like t’--like t’join us?”

 

Hanzo let his his eyes slide closed, and he took a deep, steadying breath. He held it for a pair of seconds before letting it out. He turned away and stared down into the shadows pooled in the hallway below. “I do not know what this new game is, Agent McCree,” he growled, “but I had hoped not to play _any._ ” Then a thought struck him, and he said with venom in his voice, “Perhaps my presence brings you pleasure, now that you know my fate.”

 

“W-what?” the cowboy stuttered. “No! I jus’--”

 

Hanzo cut him off. “Just send me on my missions. Return me to my ‘good, backbreaking work’ on Sado, far away from everyone. It is, as you have said, perfect for me. Give me this, and I am sure you will find my presence pales in comparison to my absence. Good night, Agent McCree.” And he descended the stairs, leaving the silent cowboy behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I feel like I may be moving things a little slowly here, but things will pick up," he says, then he doesn't update for two months.
> 
> I'm sorry to take so long! I have been unemployed for a few months, and life kinda crashed down on me there for a few weeks, but I seem to be digging my way out. I'm hoping to teach English in Taiwan now, so that's given me a sense of direction and thankfully that seems to be helping me write, so I'm super happy for that. Thank you to all the people who've been so encouraging in the meantime, I am truly appreciative of it!! I'm starting work on all my fics again, and I hope to have more out soon, much sooner than this last chapter!
> 
> Thank you for reading!!!
> 
> Edit 23-07-2017: [WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THIS CHAPTER IN COMIC FORM](http://nimpnawakproduction.tumblr.com/post/163332661957/afterdrop-by-claroquequiza-a-super-good-fic-that) BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT [NIMPNAWAKPRODUCTIONS](http://nimpnawakproduction.tumblr.com/) DREW THANK YOU SO MUCH


	8. A Call and a Series of Shots

Hanzo did not permit himself to storm down the stairs and into the barrack, nor did he slam the door shut, instead slipping it closed with a gentle click before locking it. He did allow himself the drama of leaning against the door in the complete darkness as he pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed deep in an attempt to calm the turmoil raging inside him. He cursed under his breath when he failed.

 

What a show of weakness he had just provided the cowboy.

 

He slapped at the light switch, growling slightly as he went to the side of the bunk and knelt to retrieve one of the sake cartons from underneath, the liquid sloshing loudly in the silence that weighed stuffy and hot in the air. He nearly twisted open the lid before it occurred to him, with a pang of dismay, that if he was going to India the next day he could expect to be trapped with all these Overwatch agents for hours in whatever transport they would be utilizing. He stared at the carton, feeling the need for the numbing alcohol within war with the revulsion of potentially being compromised by the unnatural, unrestoring sleep that always followed his binges. And if he was hungover on top of that--well, he had already lost control of himself in front of the cowboy, while supposedly in full possession of his faculties. How much worse would it be if alcohol entered the mix?

 

He would have to wait until he was isolated once more, when the cowboy and the rest of Overwatch were once more on the other end of the commlink.

 

With a regretful sigh, he got the other carton out as well and shuffled over to the cello case on his metallic knees. “Pack your bags,” the cowboy had said. He could follow that simple order without damaging his pride further, at least. It would not take long, though--he had precious little with him. The most involved step would be disassembling Storm Bow, but he would rather delay that until he was on the transport so it was available during the night and so he could use it as a distraction from the others. He would sorely need it; he had half a mind to march back upstairs and refuse the mission, but his heart rebelled against the thought of showing yet more weakness. He could not backtrack.

 

He packed the sake and the finished arrows before turning to the components that still needed assembly. He probably had enough for anything that might befall him in the night, but much as he wished he could leave the rest for tomorrow for a few more precious minutes of distraction, he could not risk provoking any lines of questioning about his supply train. Omission was the only tool he had to protect his scattered possessions while he served Overwatch.

 

But could he avoid the topic when he still needed to replenish his weaponry? He would be leaving for India sometime in the morning--would the cowboy and Overwatch permit a detour to Daisen? Would it be necessary? “More reconnaissance, for the most part.” The reconnaissance that he had hitherto done had not resulted in a single arrow fired, but he would not be the least bit comfortable while undersupplied.

 

The comm chimed, the sound muffled as it lay still facedown on the bunk. Hanzo turned and stared at it. Then he rose and stalked over, snatching it up and unlocking it. He was loathe to interact with anything and everything associated with the cowboy at the moment, but the sooner he knew where he was going and why, the better he could plan.

 

But before he could do more than unlock it, the comm began beeping as an incoming call flashed across the screen.

 

It was Genji.

 

Hanzo stared at the name, frozen, far longer than he was willing to admit.

 

Shaking himself, he jabbed at the screen, too hard at first for the screen to register. With carefully controlled restraint, he tapped the screen, allowing the call to connect. For two or three panicked seconds, he could find no words to say. Finally, annoyance and embarrassment forced him to say, “Yes, Agent Shimada here.” He winced inwardly, throwing a glance at the closed and locked door to make sure he was alone.

 

“Brother. Are you well?” Genji’s voice was tinny, but the concern was obvious in his tone.

 

Hanzo swallowed a sudden bitter taste in his mouth before answering. “Yes. I am fully recovered.”

 

“Good. I’m glad.”

 

It had been a long time since Hanzo had spoken to so many people in one day, but long and awkward silences were apparently becoming a defining feature of his conversational style. He had no idea how to continue, did not have anything to say to his brother--nothing worthy, at least. So he merely stared mutely at the comm, waiting for his brother to take the lead.

 

It took him what felt like a great while to finally do so.

 

“I, uh--I’ve just spoken with Winston and Soldier. About what happened out there.”

 

Another pause, one that Hanzo felt his brother expected him to fill.

 

“I see.”

 

“Is--is now not a good time?”

 

If Hanzo’s voice sounded preoccupied or strained, it was no fault of his own. He had been trying to sound as neutral and dispassionate as possible, but his intentions did not seem to be favored with success today. He tried to moderate his voice still further when he replied, “I need to prepare for the morning, but if you wish to talk, I am available.”

 

He thought he could hear something like a sigh from Genji, but it was cut off and Genji, with the air of plowing his way through a waist-high snowdrift, said, “Ok, uh, I’ll try to be fast, then. I called mostly because of McCree.” He seemed to falter for a split second before saying in a heavy voice, “I’m sorry, brother. I didn’t expect this from him. I thought he’d set aside his misgivings and treat you fairly. I never would’ve agreed to him being your handler if I didn’t.”

 

“Do not trouble yourself,” Hanzo said, hurriedly trying to head off this strange apology from his victim, as if he owed Hanzo anything at all. “It has been resolved. Agent McCree has been reprimanded, and I return to duty tomorrow. Nothing more need be done.”

 

“I would do a _lot_ more, if it were up to me,” said Genji, annoyance creeping into his voice. “He wouldn’t be your handler anymore, for one. But Winston--” He paused, then, with a huff, “--but Overwatch is small. Fewer agents than we hoped have answered the Recall, and no one else at all from Blackwatch. Winston--Winston believes McCree is still the best agent to oversee you. There is no one else familiar with clandestine work.” Then, with a strange reluctance, “Besides me.”

 

Hanzo felt his stomach tighten in dread.

 

“If you don’t want me to, I won’t,” rushed Genji, as though he could see the color draining from Hanzo’s face. Hanzo felt his teeth grind together as he clenched his jaw. “It’ll be both me and McCree, and I’ll be in the background, just to make sure that--that he’s being fair.”

 

Hanzo unclenched his jaw with a little effort. “He has been fair,” he said, struggling to maintain his neutral tone. “I said as much to the Soldier. And he acted for what he believed was the best interests of the team during the--”

 

“The team includes _you,_ Hanzo, so no, he didn’t!” Genji barked, voice rising.

 

Hanzo fought from rolling his eyes. “He was being cautious, and rightfully--”

 

“You don’t have to defend him, you know! He was being irresponsible--even he admits it!”

 

Hanzo felt his hackles begin to rise at being interrupted again. He forced the anger back down before he trusted himself enough to say, “You have already decided. Do as you will.”

 

“What?” Hanzo shook his head slightly. He should not be surprised at his brother’s lack of introspection. If he had acquired any, he would never have gotten it into his head--“Oh. OH. No, wait, no no no, Hanzo, I don’t mean to--dammit, I mean it when I say I won’t if you don’t want me to!”

 

“I have no preference,” said Hanzo evenly, lying through his teeth. If Genji wanted to keep an eye on the cowboy keeping an eye on him, there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Hanzo’s life belonged to him, after all. Then, because he had no wish to continue this conversation if Genji was only offering the illusion of choice, whether he knew it or not, “I must finish preparing to leave. Is there anything else you wish to discuss?”

 

Genji was silent for a long while. “No, there’s nothing else, for now.” Hanzo could not help but feel a sense of foreboding at _for now,_ but then Genji asked, “Where’s Winston having you go?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips, but if Genji was going to be overseeing him now--”Agent McCree tells me there is a mission in India.”

 

“India?” Genji sounded surprised. “And you’re going tomorrow?”

 

“Yes. As I said, I am fully recovered, and it would be wise to be far from Yoneyama territory,” said Hanzo, trying to sound explanatory instead of terse.

 

“But--is that the Vishkar mission?”

 

Hanzo frowned. Vishkar? The conglomerate? “I--do not know. I believe Agent McCree sent me the details just before you called. One moment.” He minimized the call and brought up the secure messaging app. As promised, there appeared to be several files waiting for him sent by the Soldier--or “76”, as most of Overwatch seemed to be calling him--along with a message from the cowboy.

 

> >From: Agent McCree
> 
>  
> 
> Here’s the info.
> 
> Attached: MissionProfile-BoaVista
> 
>  
> 
> >From: Agent McCree
> 
>  
> 
> Long story short: just like the
> 
> warehouse, but bigger.
> 
>  
> 
> >From: Agent McCree
> 
>  
> 
> Tracer’ll coming in at 0400 local. If
> 
> you need to resupply, we got
> 
> plenty of time for a pitstop. Let
> 
> Tracer know so she can adjust the
> 
> flightplan, she’s already on her way.
> 
>  
> 
> >From: Agent McCree
> 
>  
> 
> We’ll be making another stop to pick
> 
> up a new agent in Nepal before we
> 
> drop you off. I’ll send you his profile
> 
> as soon as he’s in the system, but
> 
> Genji might want to tell you about
> 
> him. Good friend of his that he wants
> 
> you to meet.
> 
>  
> 
> >From: Agent McCree
> 
>  
> 
> Total flight time including a pitstop
> 
> will be approx 14 hours. We’ll go
> 
> over everything in-flight, including
> 
> accommodation. Dinner at 7. I’m on
> 
> lookout so it’ll just be Mercy and 76.

 

Hanzo groaned inwardly at the fourth message. How many more allies of his brother were they going to crowd onto this transport? He had been remarkably lucky that both the doctor and 76 had decided to tolerate him, but however they might reason it away, the doctor with medical professionalism and 76 with battlefield pragmatism, it would not apply to other agents and friends of Genji who neither ascribed to high moral standards nor depended on his performance in battle.

 

But that was a problem to be faced tomorrow.

 

He opened the mission profile and scanned the bland writing within for “Vishkar”. He found it easily enough. “Yes, the mission profile--” He read the next few lines. “--appears to center on Vishkar.”

 

“Huh.” Genji said nothing more for a few moments, allowing Hanzo to read the mission profile a bit more attentively. His eyebrows rose a little, and he hummed a little contemplatively. Genji made a noise like a soft chuckle. “Not what you expected?”

 

“No,” replied Hanzo distractedly. He read a little further before continuing. “But I am capable of simple reconnaissance.”

 

“It’ll be a little more than that, probably. Infiltration, maybe.”

 

Hanzo nodded absently before shaking himself. “Very well. I will prepare accordingly.”

 

The conversation died once again, partially because of Hanzo’s focus on the mission profile and partially because he was waiting to see if Genji would mention this “good friend” of his. After a few moments Genji gave a static-tinged cough and asked, “Did McCree say whether you were making any stops before--?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “Yes. There is one planned, but I must contact Agent Tracer to arrange another to replenish my supplies.”

 

“Yeah, okay, she’ll be glad to help you out,” Genji said vaguely. Hanzo had the distinct impression that he was inwardly debating. He waited, deciding to test just how much or how little Genji truly wished for him to meet this person. After all, the cowboy could very well be trying to lower his defenses or meant it in jest, and the longer Genji was quiet on the other end of the commlink, the surer Hanzo felt that that was indeed the case.

 

“I--don’t know how you feel about Omnics, brother,” Genji murmured in a low voice. Hanzo lifted a brow. It sounded almost like a confession.

 

“Omnics,” he repeated. “Is the new agent an Omnic?”

 

“Yes,” Genji answered, with no little trepidation.

 

“Then it does not matter.”

 

“No?” Relief tinged the single word.

 

“No. If they are Overwatch, I will treat them as such.”

 

“Good. Good!” Genji’s relief was now almost palpable, bubbling over in his voice. Hanzo supposed he had reason to fear his views on Omnics. The Shimada-gumi had been one of the first to take advantage of the surge of illegal Omnic labor during the Crisis. Hanzo’s mother had expertly used the chaos to expand the Shimada-gumi’s influence to its greatest extent in centuries, partially because she was not one to leave any possible advantage unexploited, human or Omnic. Hanzo had continued the policy after her death, not because he was particularly impressed by any of the Omnics that had sworn loyalty to the clan, but merely because there was little reason to change the status quo. Genji had not be privy to the reasoning behind his decision. By that time--

 

“Uh, his name’s Tekhartha Zenyatta, a former Shambali monk! He and I--he’s been--well, uh--” Genji faltered once more. Hanzo waited patiently for him to find his words, though they were adding up to a rather incoherent picture. He had heard of Omnic monks--the only Omnics officially allowed to reside in Japan were foreign acolytes who had been invited to reside at a handful of Buddhist, Shinto, and Christian temples, shrines, and monasteries, to slightly negative public opinion despite being placed almost exclusively in Kyushu. To think that Genji would fall under the influence of an Omnic monk was a strange thought, but just as much because of the monk as the Omnic.

 

Finally Genji said, “I wanted to be with him when you met him, brother, but Tracer’s already left. Zenyatta’s one of the most important people in my life, my mentor and dearest friend. He was the one--well.”

 

The gears in Hanzo’s mind began whirring when Genji’s voice trailed into silence. “Good friend” had become “mentor and dearest friend”.

 

“He was--” Genji began before stopping himself again. After a few seconds, he sighed. “I’d rather tell you in person,” he admitted. Hanzo’s eyebrows shot up. “It’s--not something to say over the comm. Suffice to say, he saved my life just as Dr. Ziegler did. She saved my body, and he saved my soul.”

 

Hanzo felt the pit of his stomach drop.

 

Neither man spoke for some time, but he was only aware of the silence when Genji broke it. “Don’t worry, brother,” he said gently, almost whispering. “He’s the one who made forgiveness possible. You--”

 

“So he is the one to blame,” muttered Hanzo.

 

If the pit of his stomach had dropped before, this time the floor seemed to fall out from beneath his feet. He could not even bear to look at the comm, snapping his gaze up to stare at the opposite wall.

 

Where was his self-control? Had ten years erased a lifetime of training? This Overwatch business had certainly revealed he was out of practice, but he used to be able to keep his face under perfect control for hours-long business meetings both legitimate and illicit, where he stared down _kumichō_ who had ruled their clans for triple his lifespan and politicians and law enforcement who had been hell-bent on extorting or eliminating him until they found themselves completely outclassed by the clan--by _him_ \--and here he was unable to keep himself from striking out at the indifferent cowboy or twisting the katana he had left in his brother’s entrails.

 

If there was any lesson his mother had instilled in him from the moment he understood that the clan came first and foremost, forever, it was efficiency. Waste no effort. Strike where needed and nowhere else. Strike _when_ needed and not a moment sooner or later. All that was required was control, the foundation to build one’s dominion over equals and subordinates, and, if one were truly a master, over one’s superiors, as the Shimada-gumi had done with the dragons.

 

But now control was slipping away in favor of lashing out with words that held no power to alter his fate, words which served no purpose at best, as with the cowboy, or goaded and insulted at worst, as now, with Genji. There was no reason to provoke his brother this way; he _knew_ Genji, had seen the furor in his eyes ten years ago when Hanzo’s long-expected betrayal had come at last, a furor that, at the time, his combat skill had not matched. But it did, now--Genji had become strong, stronger than Hanzo, whether it was from simple cyborg augmentation or years of frenzied training or both, he was strong enough to do away with his murderer and avenge himself. He nearly had, before Hanzo even knew who he was, when he was still reeling from seeing the impossible dragon meet and sway his own to turn on their master. The furor had been there, in every mocking word, in every precise movement, in the blade cutting a thin red line across his throat. It was there, with the tools it needed, until Genji had revealed himself and his misguided _forgiveness_ and yanked it back.

 

But whatever shackles his brother had placed upon his furor could not hold it forever. He knew his brother, the force of nature that no human or dragon could tame, foolish and blind yet free. There was no need to provoke him, because no notion of forgiveness or pity or compassion could possibly hold him back, when his furor was so righteous and just, for once. Anything more was unnecessary and thus insulting to Genji and cast further dishonor on Hanzo.

 

Yet he had stepped, stumbled really, over the line.

 

He heard odd noises, clicks and hisses, come over the comm. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the image of the green line flickering out as the silver mask fell away.

 

“Hanzo.”

 

So that explained the difference, why his brother’s voice sounded so clear when he spoke to him the night before, versus the electronic and robotic overtones that usually marred his voice.

 

“It was my decision. Nobody but me decided to reach out to you. Master Zenyatta helped me be able to make that decision, but it was me who made it. Do you understand? Me.”

 

 _Master._ Hanzo swallowed. “I understand.”

 

Genji sighed. “I don’t know that you do.” Hanzo detected more than a little exasperation in his words, and he had to clench his jaw before he said something else imprudent. “I wish--well. In four and a half months you’ll be here in Gibraltar, and we’ll have a lot to hash out.”

 

Hanzo felt himself deflate a little, for multiple reasons. A lot to hash out. The phrase sounded crude when he repeated it to himself in his head. What did a victim say to their assassin and vice versa?

 

Ideally, nothing.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips at such a dark thought connected with his brother. Ten years were insufficient to learn the lesson.

 

“In any case, Master Zenyatta’s said many times that he wants to meet you since you joined, Hanzo. I’ll be sure to let him know you’ll be on the transport. He’ll be pleased.” Hanzo gave an imperceptible snort. “I hope you’ll try to like him, brother. He’s unlike anyone you’ve ever met, I’m sure, and he might be--difficult--to figure out. Just--just try not to overthink everything he says. He doesn’t try to obfuscate anything on purpose.”

 

That was _all_ monks did, in Hanzo’s opinion. What else could they do all day but weave and lay down layer after layer of philosophical cobwebs onto those of their predecessors? Not that laypeople were any better. The complex of stratagems and machinations that Hanzo used to keep track of could have filled many a heavy tome if he had been forced to write it all down. It was what anyone with power did: obfuscate and complicate, trying to leave everyone else struggling to catch up.

 

Perhaps it was not so strange that Genji had become influenced by this monk. Perhaps the endless web of words of the Omnic had simply appealed to him more than the endless web of words of Hanzo and the elders, something familiar yet utterly divorced from the clan that had disposed of him.

 

Genji was waiting for a response. Hanzo cleared his throat. “However he may be, he is an Overwatch agent, and I will treat him as such, I assure you.”

 

A dark chuckle. “Yeah, but Overwatch hasn’t treated _you_ very well yet. Not as well as I’d hoped, anyway. But--that may be changing. Winston’s been working on this mission for months, and now he’s trusting it to you. Take heart in that, brother.”

 

Hanzo hummed an indistinct response, but Genji seemed to accept it. “It’s late over there, and I have taken enough of your preparation time.” Hanzo nodded without thinking, suddenly feeling fatigued. “Good night, brother. I’ll speak to you soon.”

 

Genji waited a moment before ending the call when Hanzo gave no sign of replying. He was too busy staring at the comm as the exhaustion now surged through his limbs, as if he had just sprinted a thousand meters. He made his way to the bunk, trying not to stagger under the strange weight that settled on his body. He let himself fall forward onto the hard mattress, the comm bouncing off to one side as his face pressed into the thin sheets.

 

He wished Genji would not speak to him.

 

If he had to speak, he wished it was not to express concern for his wellbeing or to offer unneeded apologies or to tell him of tutelage under Omnic monks or to wish him a good night. It was partially because he could not bear so much of what he did not deserve. It all belonged to someone who had not taken his brother in his hands and twisted him apart.

 

But if Hanzo was honest, and the tremors and twitches running up and down his arms and the remains of his legs were telltale signs that he could not ignore, it was also because he was afraid.

 

He had known and understood his brother before, his moods, his motivations, well enough to track him down no matter where he fled, even when he had tried to hide himself away from the clan in the most loathsome pits of vice he could find. And Genji would never have offered concern or apologies, would never have told him anything personal if he could avoid it, and certainly never would have wished him well. Genji had known exactly what Hanzo deserved.

 

He was relying on Genji to resolve all this in the only way possible, and the Genji he knew would have done it, in a heartbeat, at the first opportunity, with nothing holding him back. _That_ Genji still had to be there, underneath the cheap veneer of forgiveness. He had to be. Hanzo was relying on it. He could not resolve this himself. He had tried. He had failed. It had to be Genji...

 

He did not know just how long exactly it took for either the weight on his limbs to lift or for his strength to return to bear it, but his obligations, as always, eventually spurned him to move. He had to contact Agent Tracer, he had to eat something, he had to pack away his food supplies, he had to bathe so that he did not hold them up in the morning, he had to read the personnel files 76 had sent him, he had to finish reading the mission profile, and, if he could, he had to sleep.

 

The sake would probably be necessary after all.

 

A glance at the comm as he sat up revealed it was a few minutes past eight. The doctor and 76 were hopefully done by now. Now all Hanzo could do was hope he would not run into any of them while he was in such a state of disequilibrium.

 

He opened up the messaging app once more, glancing at the message Agent Tracer had sent him earlier with a small frown before he tapped out the short message requesting a stop in Daisen. He had to switch to the map and study the area surrounding his cache to find the coordinates for a suitable place to land. He was not sure what kind of transport Overwatch utilized, but the cowboy had said they intended to land in a baseball field for the Niigata raid. It was somewhat difficult to find an equivalent space close enough to his cache for time yet far enough away for comfort, but he settled on the trackfield of an abandoned school six hundred meters away on the other side of the foothills sheltering the cache.

 

> >From: Agent Shimada
> 
>  
> 
> Good evening. Agent McCree advised me
> 
> to request a supply run stop from you.
> 
> The coordinates are 39°26'52.30"N
> 
> 140°26'52.04"E, in Daisen City, Akita
> 
> Prefecture. Please alert me if this is not
> 
> possible. My thanks in advance.

 

He almost sent it before he caught himself and amended the last sentence to “My thanks in advance, and for your earlier message.”

 

He dragged himself up, leaving the comm behind as he padded to the door. He unlocked and opened it loudly to warn anyone in the hall of his presence before heading up the stairs into the promisingly dark hallway above. He was pleased to see that the lights in the dining area were also off, and he only illuminated the lights over the kitchen counter as he rummaged around in the cabinets for the canned and nonperishable food he had stashed there. He piled a dozen items on top of two of the MREs from the Spanish Armed Forces. He checked the fridge for any bentō he may have forgotten, but if he had they must have spoiled and been thrown out.

 

Fully laden, he switched off the lights and almost made it back out to the hallway before he was blocked by a dark figure.

 

It yawned and prodded at the light switch.

 

The doctor.

 

She started at the sight of him, her high ponytail swaying with the sudden movement, but she quickly smoothed her startlement into a slight smile and a nod. “Mr. Shimada! You surprised me.”

 

“I apologize,” he replied, taking a step back quickly enough to make the pile of food in his arms teeter dangerously.

 

She raised her hands placatingly. “No, it’s alright. I’m still getting used to being around ninjas and time-jumpers.” Hanzo blinked at the strange term while she looked at his precarious load. “Do you need any help?”

 

“Thank you, no,” he replied, even as a can of miso-stewed mackerel slid almost to the edge of the top MRE before he shifted to compensate. “I am not going far.” She gave a reluctant nod as she stepped aside to let him pass. He nodded in thanks as he went, but he tried not to sigh when he heard her footsteps follow. He led her downstairs as he willed nothing to drop, but he made it to the barrack without troubling her to pick up after him. She stood a wary distance from the entrance until he set everything on the floor next to the cello case, coming forward only when he turned to face her. Even then, she went no further than the doorway.

 

“I realize it’s already late, given how early Lena will come,” she said in a differential tone, “but Jesse tells me you’ll be working in India.”

 

“Yes.”

 

She nodded. “Are your vaccinations current?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. The Japanese healthcare system had become very proactive in the years since the Crisis, maintaining strict medical records to re-eradicate the myriad diseases that had emerged in the slums and shanty towns housing domestic refugees from the north and illegal refugees fleeing from mainland Asia. It was more trouble than it was worth to create and maintain the alias necessary to have access to healthcare, and underground or unlicensed doctors usually did not bother with something as mundane as vaccines. “No, I am afraid not,” he admitted.

 

“We’ll need to vaccinate you, then,” she said briskly. “India eradicated Japanese encephalitis and malaria last year and they require foreigners to carry a certificate of vaccination to produce on demand. If they suspect it isn’t real, health officials have broad powers to run blood tests for antibodies. It will take a few days for the antibodies to be detectable, but we will have to take that risk.” She paused. “With your permission, I’d like to take the opportunity to give you all the vaccines required by Overwatch.”

 

Hanzo nodded reluctantly. The doctor smiled and stood back, waving an arm at the door leading to her improvised examination room. “We can get everything done in a few minutes.”

 

Hanzo lifted a brow. “You came prepared.”

 

The doctor flushed a little. “Yes--one must take advantage of every moment when working in Overwatch. I’d hoped to create a file for you even before--”

 

Hanzo stopped dead in the middle of the hallway. The doctor also stopped, her smile disappearing. “A file? A medical file?”

 

“Yes, of course. You didn’t think I could treat you without documentation?”

 

“I would have greatly prefered it,” Hanzo bit out. “Where is this file stored? Is it physical or electronic?”

 

The doctor worried her lip before answering. “Electronic. Athena stores it under encryption and strict safeguards.”

 

“But you have been sending her my medical details?”

 

The doctor raised her chin. “The connection is secure.”

 

“ _No_ connection is secure,” Hanzo fumed, fighting the urge to glare by looking anywhere but at her. How could he have been so foolish? Overwatch may be an illegal organization, but it had aspirations to become legitimate once more. _Of course_ they would document everything. It would be necessary to satisfy the bureaucrats if they ever deigned to consider resurrecting the organization. “What information is contained in the file?”

 

The doctor opened her mouth, hesitated, then said, “Biometric data and a report on the damage found and repaired.”

 

Hanzo sighed, eyes closed. A report on his drunkenness. As he feared. What else did it reveal? “What kind of biometric data?”

 

“Mr. Shimada, is there something specific you don’t wish to be documented? Biometric data is comprehensive, it would be easier to say what it _doesn’t_ include,” the doctor said with an air of cautioning, as though she feared his reaction. She was right to.

 

“Then the data would reveal my prosthetics.”

 

The doctor inhaled sharply. “You’re afraid of EMP attacks.”

 

“I _anticipate_ EMP attacks, now,” he replied heavily, looking at her accusingly. Among other things, he amended mentally.

 

The doctor returned his gaze evenly. “I refuse to believe they’re not shielded.”

 

He shook his head ruefully. “Shielding is not a failsafe,” he retorted. “There are a number of people who would be happy to learn that a focused EMP grenade would be useful in incapacitating me, and they have access to many _secure_ communications.”

 

The doctor did not reply; she only looked at him gravely.

 

He huffed a quiet sigh as he collected himself. What was done was done; it would only be petulant to gripe any further. Damage control was the only option now. “The documentation is required, I suppose.”

 

“Yes. No exceptions.”

 

Hanzo nodded, rubbing at one eye. “Is it possible,” he asked, doing his best to phrase the question as an actual question and not an order, “to transfer any further medical data to Athena by courier only? That is, without involving any electronic transmissions of any kind?”

 

The doctor considered the question for a moment. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I can store the data in the Caduceus and in my comm until I return to the Watchpoint and sync it with Athena’s servers manually.”

 

“I would request you do so in the future.” It was not a perfect solution, but if no one had intercepted the damning data, then hopefully no one would breach the AI’s defenses until after it no longer mattered.

 

The doctor studied him for a few moments. “Alright,” she said at last. “Starting from now.”

 

“My thanks.” Hanzo turned away and walked into the examination room, finding it arranged almost as it was before. The doctor followed after a few seconds as he sat in the chair. He watched her fiddle with her comm as she drifted towards the cabinet plugged into the wall socket. She finished making whatever adjustments she needed before she opened a drawer and got out hand sanitizer and rubber gloves. While she prepared, Hanzo rubbed his left shoulder absently, remembering the cold feeling of the medical nanobots when she had first injected them.

 

It suddenly struck him that he had done little to merit her admittedly considerable efforts to treat and to placate him. True, it was her duty, as she herself had said, and she had overstepped her bounds the night before when she repaired his liver without his consent, but it was undeniable that she was being far more accommodating than his past and present actions deserved. He had failed to acknowledge that. He would not apologize for his concerns because he considered them perfectly legitimate, but he should attempt to remedy that, at least.

 

He started to work out what he wanted to say as he watched the doctor roll the wheeled cabinet over to his side and withdraw several small bottles and syringes. He could not help but raise an eyebrow at the number, ten of each in all. She did not miss the look. She shrugged even as she plunged the first syringe through the cap of the first bottle.

 

“Yes, there are a fair few,” she said, with a small smile that was equal parts reassuring and wary. “I’ll split them between your shoulders, of course.”

 

Hanzo frowned and sighed as he rolled his shoulders a little. How many times was he going to have to contradict her? At this point it would seem deliberate. “I--I would prefer them all in the left shoulder, if it is possible.”

 

“That--I don’t recommend it,” she said carefully. “The vaccines may cause swelling and other adverse reactions. Is there a reason to avoid your right shoulder?”

 

Hanzo sat back slightly in the chair, defeated. She knew of his past, anyway. “No. There is not.”

 

“Mr. Shimada--” she began to say.

 

He raised his hand to stop her. “I have been difficult enough. It is trivial.”

 

The doctor did not reply straightaway, instead filling the syringe carefully before setting the bottle aside and picking up a strange-looking spray can. He began to shrug out of his gi, right side first, but with a deft, bird-like motion she quickly stepped to his left side. “There should still be residual nanobots in your system,” she said firmly. “If they aren’t sufficient to contain any side effects, notify me and we can use the Caduceus.”

 

Hanzo shook his head. “There is no need to trouble yourself.”

 

She gave a short laugh. “I assure you, Mr. Shimada, if it was an imposition on me, I’d let you know. My time can be very precious, and I know how to manage it. We’re going to be stuck on the Orca all day tomorrow, so there’ll be plenty of time to treat you if necessary. I’m just thinking of your comfort; we should be spacing these shots out over several days if not weeks, but time will not allow it. It is more likely to provoke a reaction to do them all at once, but not certain. The nanobots will help, and I’ll be nearby, so this time I can oblige you.”

 

After a moment, Hanzo nodded, and shrugged off his left sleeve. The doctor sprayed foul-smelling antiseptic mist over the tattooed skin before plunging the needle into his flesh with a sharp but short sting of pain. She repeated the process with the remaining bottles and syringes, and soon Hanzo sported two neat lines of bandages on his shoulder and spilling down his bicep.

 

When she finished with a short, “There. All done. Let me know about any pain or nausea,” before busying herself with the clean up, he stood, gave his shoulder a brief once over, straightened his back, and cleared his throat.

 

“Dr. Ziegler?”

 

She turned with a questioning look.

 

“I have no reason to expect your aid, but you have given it freely regardless, despite the difficulties I have imposed. I will not apologize for my concerns, but I do thank you for your willingness to treat me. It is more than my due, and I will not forget it.”

 

The doctor looked a little shocked. “Oh! Of course, Mr. Shimada. As I said before, it is my duty.”

 

“It is,” he replied with tight formality, “but fulfilling one’s duty commands respect, which I have not properly shown. For _that_ I do apologize.” He bowed formally, straightening quickly because he was not sure how awkward it would make the Westerner feel. Before she could say anything else, he bid her good night and swept out of the room, across the hall, and into the barrack, closing the door behind him gently.

 

It was half past eight, and there was still much to do. He gave the doctor time to finish her work and go back upstairs by assembling the last of his arrows while taking distracted bites of atún blanco and cocido madrileño. It was not enough to satisfy his hunger, given how little he had eaten earlier in the day, so he opened up the can of mackerel and scooped up the strong-smelling pieces with the bread rolls from the MRE.

 

When he finished, he packed the arrows and unopened food away and then eased open the door to check for the doctor, finding the hallway completely deserted. He fetched his toiletries and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and shower, allowing the water to unstick and wash the bandages off his shoulder. He rolled his shoulder, idly watching the scales of the dragon and puffy storm clouds for any sign of beading blood, but there was none, nor was there any sign of an adverse reaction to the vaccines. Shrugging, he stepped out of the shower after collecting the bandages, depositing them in his toiletries bag to dispose of somewhere other than in the safehouse. He wiped the condensation off part of the long mirror above the sinks and ran a hand over his jaw and cheeks, feeling the stubble of a day that seemed interminably long despite his having risen so late.

 

He dried himself off with his small towel before he draped it over his right shoulder. He looked out into the still-dark hallway and darted down to the barrack, unwilling to be caught with only a towel doing absolutely nothing to preserve his modesty. He made it without problems, and he grabbed the boxers that he had left all day on the drying rack, pleased to find that they and everything else were ready for the next day.

 

He picked the comm up off the bunk. There was a new message from Agent Tracer.

 

> >From: Agent Tracer
> 
>  
> 
> Righto! I’ve scheduled a two-hour window
> 
> for the supply run, plus thirty minutes for
> 
> the trip! I’ve let everyone know!

 

> >From: Agent Tracer
> 
>  
> 
> Haha, no problem! Genji’s told me a lot
> 
> about you, and I can’t wait to hear the
> 
> truth about the Rikimaru Incident!
> 
> Somehow I don’t quite believe it!
> 
> -Lena

 

Hanzo stared at the message, nonplussed. The Rikimaru Incident? He had no idea what she was referring to. He sighed and exited out of the message thread. He had not yet met this Agent Tracer, so it was impossible to even begin to judge her motivations. Perhaps it was some trouble that Genji had gotten into while on his escapades, something both he and Agent Tracer believed was infamous enough for him to hear of. Or perhaps it was simply some story Genji had improvised to entertain her or to distract from some other infraction--he had done that often enough when he was young, to charm his way into and out of any number of situations.

 

Or perhaps it was a true story that Genji had told to those close to him. That would also explain why Hanzo had not heard it.

 

He switched to the message the doctor had sent him that he had hitherto ignored. His earlier suspicion was confirmed; it was simply an attachment labeled “Functional Alcoholism Symptoms and Treatment”. He shook his head, but dutifully saved it to his comm. He was read it later, in case the doctor asked him about it or had the AI check to see if he had at least accessed it.

 

For now, however, the agent personnel files and mission profile took priority in the limited time he had before he would attempt to sleep. Now that the information would not invite the cowboy’s ire, he felt an almost hungering curiosity to see who the rest of Overwatch was and what they were capable of. Before he might only have been interested in case any of them decided to “interfere” on Genji’s behalf, but the portion of the mission profile he had managed to read while talking to Genji made him want to know who he would be working with as he went to sniff around the doorstep to one of the world’s most powerful and advanced technology corporations.

 

Vishkar had a limited presence in Japan outside of Tokyo and Osaka, but they had been making waves recently by showing a marked interest in Hokkaido and its vast crumbling, abandoned real estate. The response by the Japanese government was apathetic, mostly because the small yet zealous population of Ainu-Mosir was staunchly opposed to any outside interference, which only intensified when the scandal in Rio de Janeiro erupted. Hanzo had not paid much attention to it; there was little about riots against corruption and power hungry corporations in Brazil that concerned him.

 

But it apparently concerned Overwatch, enough so that they were sending him to Utopaea’s main satellite campus, only 120km from Utopaea itself. He had not yet read the complete profile, but from what Genji had said, he would be paving the way for another raid, against people with far more resources than the Yoneyama could ever dream of. It would be wise to learn everything he could about Overwatch’s current roster, so that he could read the mission profile with each of their capabilities in mind.

 

He pulled up the first file, for “Agent D. Va,” and began to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got this out sooner than last time, even if it's a little bit of a boring chapter! Poor Hanzo's day lasted three chapters and 20,000+ words, so I'll let him sleep. But he's heading off to poke Vishkar in the eye, so there'll be action soon!
> 
> And, much more exciting, _Afterdrop_ now had its very first piece of fanart!! Many, _many_ thanks to [Motetus](http://motetus.tumblr.com/) for drawing [this beautiful piece featuring the tense car ride in Ch. 5!](http://motetus.tumblr.com/post/161747779944/an-illustration-for-chapter-5-of-afterdrop-by) Thank you so much!!! 
> 
> Motetus has also done a beautiful piece for my story _The First Moment_ , about reconciliation between the Shimada brothers, that you can see [right here!](http://motetus.tumblr.com/post/160671670369/im-alive-genji-repeats-forcefully-shaking)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!! I'll try to get the action going real soon!!


	9. The Cache and the Commanders

Reading the personnel files and the mission profile for Boa Vista, though absolutely necessary, regrettably took all the limited time there might otherwise have been for sleeping.

 

There was a surprising amount of information, enough that Hanzo was soon marveling at just how much he was being trusted with. Hours passed by before he was able to start on the mission profile, and it turned out to be similarly detailed. He was aided in his task by the fact that he had slept in until the afternoon, so he had not been up even ten hours when he started reading around nine o’clock, settling into seiza at the side of the bunk as he studied each file and committed as much relevant information as he could to memory. By the time three o’clock arrived, he had long since deleted the alarm he had set to wake him. It seemed he would not be sleeping until he arrived in India.

 

But he had managed to read all the files and the mission profile, reread the key aspects that applied most directly to Boa Vista, and then go over his mental inventory of his Daisen cache.

 

It was fortunate they were stopping in Daisen. He would need far more of the equipment in his cache than simply ammunition. Of course, it was possible that Overwatch would provide at least some of what he would require, given that both Genji and the cowboy said Winston had been working on this mission for months. While Hanzo had been assigned at the last minute, the sheer amount and excellent quality of the information confirmed how much effort the gorilla scientist _from the Moon_ had expended already.

 

Hanzo had expected there to be quite the story behind the obvious genetic experiment that was Agent Winston, but to find that it had to do with the abandoned lunar colony--that was just one of the increasingly unexpected bits of trivia that 76 was letting drop with the personnel files. The cowboy had been right: much of it was _very_ interesting. Hanzo would have to find time to reread them all later more thoroughly when he was not pressed for time.

 

Now, however, it was time to get ready for the day and offer what assistance he could. Landing a troop transport in a quiet residential neighborhood in suburban Niigata at four in the morning without attracting attention was admittedly not among Hanzo’s talents, but he assumed that preparation and speed would be necessary to help maintain stealth.

 

Of course, he had not noticed the transport just prior to the raid. It had been several hundred meters away, but Hanzo should have seen _something_ from his perch if Overwatch was not taking stealth seriously. Furthermore, the leaves and needles blasted away from one of the concrete patios alongside the safehouse suggested that the agents here with him now may have been dropped off directly rather than making their way from some far-off drop point in the mountains. If they had, and no one had come to investigate them--

 

Well. He would not count on Overwatch’s stealth capabilities until he personally saw them in action. The opening salvo of the giant in the battle armor--Agent Reinhardt, Crisis veteran and former lieutenant in the Bundeswehr’s Crusader battalion--during the raid put it all in question until proven otherwise, in Hanzo’s mind.

 

He dressed quickly in a set of his civilian clothes, a simple dark button-down shirt with long sleeves for his tattoos and slacks that covered his prosthetics. The slacks did not quite disguise the artificial nature of his legs to his satisfaction, but he kept them for days like these when he would presumably not be in public much. All of his other meager possessions, minus Storm Bow, a few arrows held in a crude bundle by a Velcro strip, and his toiletries bag, went into the cello case. He left the case and his weaponry beside the door before returning to the bunk to clip the comm to his belt and strip the bed cover and blankets off the mattress. There would be just enough time to wash them before leaving them to dry in the laundry room, ready for whomever would occupy the safehouse next. He wadded the bedding into a lumpy bundle under one arm, grabbed his toiletries with his free hand, and carefully opened the door.

 

Light flooded in. He immediately focused on the open door of the doctor’s examination room, which was similarly illuminated. He could see three of the cabinets gathered by the door already, and the edge of another rolled into view as he watched. He was about to step forward to see if the doctor needed any help when he heard her voice, soft yet distinct as it cut through the silence.

 

“If _you_ think so, then I suppose I am.” A pause, and then she said, a tad haughtily, “I’ve dealt with worse people. Not many, but I have. Practice makes perfect when it comes to treating people you’d rather shoot.”

 

She was talking with someone over the comm, Hanzo realized, as he moved back with a featherlight step and slid the door almost closed before hitting the lightswitch and plunging the barrack into darkness as he listened to the doctor continue.

 

“It helps that he clearly expects to be shot at any moment. It’s reassuring, strange as it seems. If he’s nervous about it, then he thinks we’re willing to do it, and _that_ is a healthy fear for him to have, considering what he’s done.”

 

Whoever she was speaking with apparently had a lot to say to _that_ , given the length of the silence.

 

“No, that’s true,” said the doctor, a tad reluctantly. “He nearly knocked Jesse’s leg off. I certainly don’t want him to do _that_ again.” Hanzo grimaced as the unbidden image of the cowboy’s knee shattering under Storm Bow flashed through his mind. “It--it’s a struggle,” said the doctor, with an air of introspection. “Finding the balance between suspicion and charity, I mean. Genji asked us all to give him a chance, and there’s little I wouldn’t do for him, but--when Genji was brought in--” She sighed. “It’s impossible not to think about that night. Have you noti--ah, that is to say, they have the same eyes.”

 

Hanzo leaned heavily against the doorframe.

 

“When he was first brought in, Genji had the most amazing eyebrows I’d ever seen. They looked almost like his shuriken, with three sharp points at the ends. He told me once he was quite the fashionista before then, and I believed him, based on that.” Hanzo’s chest was too tight for him to scoff at that as he thought of bright green hair.

 

But all such thoughts were banished when the doctor said with no small amount of bitterness, “They sloughed off during the course of his treatment and never regrew. The skin damage--ahem. Anyway. I never really thought about it in the years since, but when you meet Shimada Hanzo face-to-face, you don’t expect to focus on something as absurd as his eyebrows. But that’s what I did. His eyebrows have points. Three of them. A distinctive family trait, it seems. It brings those days with Genji back, every time I look at his brother.

 

“Hence my surprise, you see, that I am apparently treating him well.”

 

Silence descended. Hanzo closed the door without a sound and stood in the darkness, breathing deep.

 

He was liking the doctor more and more. She had seemed far too accepting of him, despite her words about her supposed anger. Almost ingenuous, which struck him as dangerous in a doctor and field medic. It was reassuring to find that she was, in reality, more torn and suspicious than she let on. And she had not let on, which allowed her to grow still more in Hanzo’s estimation. Despite her fears and her doubts, despite Hanzo’s crime literally staring her in the eye, she did her job, burying her misgivings under a mask that hardly cracked at all, in his presence at least. Truly admirable.

 

And she was thoroughly on his brother’s side, it seemed--his brother had been lucky to find such a stalwart and useful ally, right when his family had destroyed him.

 

He liked her. Given what she had done for Genji and himself, she had already merited his gratitude, as incompetent as he was at showing it, but she was more worthy of respect than he had thought even the night before.

 

He reopened the door, louder this time, but not overly so. There was a fine line to walk before one crossed over into being obvious, after all. It seemed to do the job: the voice across the hall immediately silenced. Hanzo “quietly” scooted his possessions out and to the side of the doorway with his feet, letting Storm Bow rattle slightly on the floor as he pressed it against the case’s side before he made his way to the laundry room to leave the bedding in the washer, allowing his feet to tap loudly (for him) all the way.

 

The doctor was still silent when he went back into the hallway and headed for the bathroom to shave. He had deliberately left that for this morning; it was easy to become progressively sloven while traveling, but Hanzo tried to avoid that as much as possible.

 

As he approached, he saw to his dismay that the light was on in there as well, spilling out from underneath the door. He sighed, pausing briefly to listen. There was the sound of rushing water, so whoever it was was using the shower. Hanzo pursed his lips as he checked the time on the comm. 0315--plenty of time, unless Agent Tracer was early. He prepared to loiter in the hallway until whoever it was finished and stepped out of the shower so Hanzo could enter without taking them by surprise, but the water shut off almost immediately. Even so, he gave them four minutes to towel off in the shower stall if that was their custom before he laid a flat palm on the door and slowly pushed it open.

 

It was, unfortunately, the cowboy, but he was mercifully standing at the far end of the mirror, leaning over over the farthest sink as he brushed his teeth. He had a damp towel wrapped around his waist, and his wet, uncombed hair hung in small clumps around his head. His metal arm lay on the counter at his side, his brawny left bicep jutting out to the side, ending just above his missing elbow.

 

He turned slightly to see who was coming in. Hanzo stared impassively, waiting to see how the cowboy would treat him, given how their conversation had ended a few hours before.

 

The toothbrush paused for a split-second before he nodded slightly and turned back to the mirror. Hanzo, thankful that he had opted for silence, gave the barest of nods in return as he went to the nearest sink to the door, leaving a wide buffer between himself and the cowboy. He prepared to shave as quickly as possible; a plethora of hurried mornings had allowed him to refine his speedy yet precise technique.

 

He was slightly startled when Soldier: 76 stepped out of one of the shower stalls. He had been so focused on maintaining a tolerably neutral expression as he tried to hurry that he had not even considered that it might not have been the cowboy he heard showering.

 

Despite his focus on shaving, Hanzo could hardly keep from scoffing at the sight of 76’s red visor firmly in place, even here, just after showering--did the man truly go nowhere without it? Why was it so necessary?

 

But Hanzo’s attention was soon drawn to the Soldier’s physique. It was truly impressive--76’s white hair and receding hairline had given the impression that he was more than a little older than Hanzo, and while his chest and arm hair was equally white, white enough almost to blend into his pale skin except where it was crisscrossed with dark scars, his musculature was at great odds with his apparent age. He really was a huge man, with very little body fat, a broad chest, and thick arms.

 

76 settled at the sink between himself and the cowboy and started fishing around inside a small nylon satchel, eventually finding a comb to run through his thin hair. Even the cowboy, who looked to be about as tall as 76, looked small in comparison, even with his powerful torso on full display. He was similarly pockmarked with numerous scars, though his looked white against his dark skin and even darker body hair. His broad figure also seemed less obvious than 76’s, softened by a thin layer of body fat.

 

It was somewhat amusing to have 76 between Hanzo and the cowboy, as if to contrast and compare. Hanzo was at least as broad and as lean as 76, yet seemed much smaller despite only being perhaps fifteen centimeters shorter. The cowboy, on the other hand, was as broad and as tall, but his softened outline cut a less intimidating or powerful silhouette than 76’s. The old Soldier seemed to have it all.

 

What must he have looked like, mused Hanzo, when he was younger? Had any of his body mass succumbed to his age at all? Or were his genetics just that unfairly good?

 

Impossible to tell, of course, and given that Soldier: 76’s personnel file was nearly as empty as Agents D. Va and Lúcio’s, he doubted whether anyone at Overwatch knew. To be expected, really, from someone who wore a mask even in the bathroom.

 

76 grunted questioningly, startling Hanzo out of his thoughts as he paused in mid-shave. The red visor’s reflection in the mirror was locked on him, and Hanzo tried to head off the rather agreeable flush he could feel rising at being caught looking.

 

Ah. It seemed it had been a little while. He should start looking for opportunities to address that. Right then, however, it was necessary to head off any assumptions 76 might be making.

 

“Is Agent Tracer still arriving at 0400?” It was a valid enough question, given that the Soldier and the cowboy seemed to be in no rush.

 

“Little earlier, actually,” said 76. “She checked in a little while ago and said her ETA’s about 340.”

 

“Ah,” replied Hanzo. “My possessions are ready. Is there anything I can do to assist before she arrives?”

 

76 shook his head as he returned to styling his hair. “Everything’s good to go. Mercy’s equipment will be the most annoying part, but we got everything down here in good time when we arrived, and between the four of us and Tracer we should be able to get everything into the Orca pretty quick.”

 

Hanzo nodded as he finished off the last few patches of stubble. There was silence as the trio continued their morning rituals. It felt rather oppressive to Hanzo. He had shared many communal bathrooms in hostels, gymnasiums, bathhouses, and homeless shelters over the years, but he had grown used to being the only living soul in this safehouse, and while it had felt isolating to be in a space meant for so many people, now it felt overcrowded, even with only two other people in the same room.

 

He splashed cold water over his beard, careful not to drip any water on his shirt, before bending forward to search for any deviations or stray hairs, finding none. Satisfied, he brushed his teeth with a ruthless efficiency that left the slight taste of blood in his mouth before he threw everything back in his bag and started to head for the exit.

 

But the cowboy cleared his throat.

 

Hanzo paused and reluctantly turned. The cowboy had been brushing his teeth the entire time while staring straight ahead at his own reflection, even as 76 had calmly and naturally progressed from styling his thin hair to putting on deodorant to trimming his nails. Now he had spat out most of the toothpaste, but a large green-white dribble was dripping down his scruffy beard, threatening to spill down his chest. He swallowed inaudibly before he gave a small smile. “H-how is it you look so put together first thing in the mornin’?”

 

Hanzo suppressed a sigh. Had his words been in vain? Was the cowboy that determined to continue the pointless dance? He glanced at 76, but the visor prevented any help in ascertaining the cowboy’s intentions. He pursed his lips briefly. “What do you mean?”

 

The cowboy raised his hand, still occupied with a toothbrush, and awkwardly tapped beneath one eye, almost poking it out with the brush. “You come in here t’shave, yet your eyeliner’s already on point. Don’ tell me you wake up like that.”

 

Hanzo was not inclined to indulge the cowboy’s inane questions, but he was unwilling to be too recalcitrant in front of Soldier: 76. Perhaps, Hanzo thought, it was 76’s presence that explained the cowboy’s intentions. Perhaps the cowboy was keen to provide examples of camaraderie in front of a witness.

 

“I do wake up this way,” Hanzo deadpanned. “It is permanent makeup.”

 

The cowboy’s eyes widened. “What, like tattoos?” He whistled at Hanzo’s curt nod. “Must’ve hurt like a bear trap.”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow, glanced meaningfully at his left arm, turned, and walked out the door.

 

Any attempt to strain his ears to hear possible audible reactions from either man took a backseat to finding the doctor moving a cabinet into the hallway, next to the stairs.

 

“Good morning,” said Hanzo quietly. He meet her eyes evenly when she turned. It would not do to alter the normalcy that he and the doctor had established too quickly; that would be a dead giveaway that he had heard what he should not have heard. But now that he knew about the doctor’s discomfort, he could work on gradually looking at her a little less, turning his head away a little sooner, to minimize it. “Do you require assistance?”

 

“Oh, good morning, Mr. Shimada,” she said with a tired smile. “No, not yet. Getting everything up the stairs will be the hard part, but Lena will be here in ten or fifteen minutes anyway. We’ll get everything up then. How is your shoulder? Any side effects?”

 

Hanzo shook his head. “None, thank you. Excuse me, I just have one last thing to tidy up, then I believe I will try to eat before Agent Tracer arrives.”

 

She nodded amiably. “Just try not to turn on any lights while you’re upstairs. We’d like to keep the place looking empty as possible before an evac.”

 

Hanzo nodded and ducked into the laundry room to leave the bedding on one of the room’s clotheslines. When he came back out, the doctor was back in the examination room, allowing him to escape up the stairs without inconveniencing her further.

 

The scant supplies in the cupboards and fridge had been emptied out into ordered piles on the counter. Whoever had done so had the prescience to leave the can opener next to the pile of MREs, so Hanzo helped himself to two last ones when the sight of them made his stomach roar to life. He ate quickly, shoveling the food into his mouth and taking large gulps of bottled water given the time, and that the tables and chairs the agents had been using were still scattered around the dining area.

 

Once he had finished eating, he moved quickly to stack the chairs in the corner where he had found them the week before--had it only been a week? It seemed far longer--before he settled the tables on their sides, folding their legs and scooting them against the wall. The space must look as unlived in as possible, should someone come snooping after they left.

 

He was just finishing when he heard someone coming up the stairs quickly.

 

“Shimada? _Shimada?_ You up here?”

 

It was the cowboy. Hanzo rolled his eyes. He had not turned any lights on; the moonlight coming in from the windows had been sufficient. What could the cowboy be so excited about? “Yes. I am here,” he called quietly.

 

“There ya are,” the cowboy called back down the hall, loudly. “Sorry,” he said in a more normal volume as he emerged from the hallway, arm attached, sans hat, but dressed in his usual jeans and boots and plaid flannel shirt, though the color was impossible to see in the dim light. “Lena just radioed in t’let us now she’s comin’ in for a landin’, and I wanted t’find you before she did. Did you manage t’get all that readin’ done?”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo.

 

The cowboy paused, his face half-hidden in shadow. “All of ‘em?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Oh. Well, then, uh--lotta info in there.”

 

Indeed there had been. Hanzo had been expecting a short description of abilities and specializations, the bare minimum that would be required to know what to expect on the battlefield. What he got were actual personnel files, in every sense of the word--basic biographical information, agent IDs, mission histories, actual _profiles_ , and only then specializations. There was even contact information--when he pulled up Agent D. Va’s file, the comm advised him her information had been added to the secure messaging app. She was apparently new. Her mission history was completely blank, as she had not gone on a single mission for Overwatch yet. That, in itself, raised his eyebrows. He had been under the impression that the Recall was just that, a recall of previously affiliated agents. To bring in entirely new people--that could mean many things, and Hanzo was already certain of at least one: _“Fewer agents than we hoped have answered the Recall.”_ Overwatch must be desperate for more personnel to risk opening its clandestine ranks to the unvetted.

 

But then again, it was apparently willing to send such information halfway around the world through electronic channels. Perhaps it was asking to be exposed.

 

So, yes, there was a “lotta info”. More even than was written in the files themselves.

 

The cowboy ran his flesh hand through his damp hair, nervously gripping it rather than letting it drop down to his side. “So, uh. Whaddaya think?”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow. That was a big question. “As you said,” he said slowly, “much of it was interesting.”

 

The cowboy chuckled nervously. “Yeah, we’re quite the eclectic bunch. Always have been, and we’re continuing the tradition this time around, too. Anyone, uh. Anyone stand out?”

 

Where was this line of questioning leading to? Hanzo turned away to nudge the last table into a slightly more secure position as he thought. Stand out? The current Overwatch roster was a mosaic of the strange and unusual. What value was there to asking which agents Hanzo thought were particularly noteworthy?

 

“Several did,” he said at last. “Agent Winston’s origins were surprising, for example.”

 

“Ha, yeah, should’ve seen him his first few weeks around Overwatch. Lotta double takes and starin’. Made him pretty self-conscious, especially since he was still gettin’ used t’things like weather and humidity. He was pretty poofy before he figured out how t’deal with it. Too bad he wasn’ in Blackwatch--less people, and ol’ Reyes would’ve givin’ people the boot for gawkin’.”

 

Hanzo nodded, still baffled by the purpose of this conversation. Thus far it was as inane as the cowboy’s question in the bathroom.

 

“Any--anything else catch yer eye?”

 

Hanzo set his jaw. He could not read the cowboy very well in the half-darkness, try as he might, so he could not tell if the cowboy was merely trying to throw him off-balance with purportedly harmless conversation or was trying to steer the conversation itself towards some end or had some other purpose entirely. One thing was certain, though: he was being far too talkative. Soldier: 76 was not here and Genji was not listening. As far as Hanzo knew there was no one to witness the cowboy’s show of attempted conversation, and the cowboy had never been one to overtalk. Perhaps he dropped an unnecessary comment here and there, but otherwise he was brief and concise, with every word calculated for maximum effect, whether it was to direct Hanzo to the next objective or cut him to the core.

 

This new pointless, meandering conversation had to have a purpose.

 

But as long as the cowboy was willing to talk, Hanzo might as well let him. Perhaps he would drop something that would allow him to puzzle out the cowboy’s new game. He would have to see if he could steer the conversation to information he could easily verify, though; Hanzo was not about to contact Winston to see how “poofy” he had been in his early Overwatch days, and the cowboy had to know it.

 

“Agent Tracer’s ‘chronal accelerator’--” Hanzo said. “Her file mentioned it fairly often, but its function appeared difficult to explain.”

 

The cowboy gave a short laugh. “Yeah, that’s cuz it’s damn near impossible to explain. I dunno if Winston himself knows exactly how it works, and he built the thing. Lena’s able to explain in layman’s terms better than anyone. You should ask her--oh!” The cowboy snapped his metal fingers, although it was more of an odd scraping, pinging noise. “That reminds me why I came up here in the first place. Wanted t’warn ya that she has the tendency t’--”

 

Several things happened all at once.

 

Down the hallway, the entrance to the safehouse produced a truly baffling set of noises laid on top of each other. It was as though the deadbolt was unlocking while the door itself was slamming shut, with the beeps of the keypad sounding an inharmonious chord as though someone had briefly mashed the keys all at once.

 

The dark hallway itself was thrown into sharp relief by a harsh blue flash, like lightning--or his own dragons.

 

The cowboy shouted, “Lena, Lena, Lena, hold up, hold up!”

 

And there was suddenly a petite woman with an aviator jacket in the room.

 

Hanzo threw himself backward to land in a crouched position by one of the stacks of chairs, minimizing his profile, fists raised and ready to attack or defend with his body or a flung chair.

 

He managed to catch one glimpse of the woman’s face, eyes wide behind tinted goggles, teeth bared as though she were sucking in a breath between clenched teeth, and empty hands raised.

 

And, just as suddenly, she was gone, and everything minus the cowboy’s shout and his own startled reaction reversed itself, the blue flash retreating down the hall and the bizarre noise of the door seemingly performing all its functions of unlocking, opening, closing, and locking in the same instant.

 

There was a beat of silence.

 

“What--” began Hanzo, his voice tight with anger, but he cut himself off when the beeps of the keypad could be heard through the thick door and down the long hallway. They were slow, as though the person was punching them in with exaggerated caution. The deadbolt slid free, and the door creaked open.

 

“Hello? Jesse?” called a feminine voice. “Weren’t you supposed to warn him, love?”

 

The cowboy swore under his breath as he raised his hands placatingly at Hanzo. “Yeah, uh--”

 

The door closed with a heavy thud, and light footsteps came down the hall, still with exaggerated caution. “Are you two alright?”

 

Hanzo precipitously rose to his full height. “Warn me of what?” he hissed. “Of _that?_ What was that?”

 

The cowboy sighed. “That was Lena. That was the chronal accelerator in action. Sorry, Lena, I came up t’tell him, but we-- _I_ got sidetracked, so--”

 

The young woman stepped into the room with a bubbly laugh. “Really now, Jess? _You_ were the one who was all, ‘I better let him know before you spook him into the rafters like a cat.’ That was _five minutes ago_ , how did you forget in that time?”

 

The cowboy looked thoroughly miserable, even in the poor lighting. He was avoiding looking at Hanzo, though his hand were still raised, as if in surrender. “Well, uh. Sorry. T’the both of ye, I didn’ mean t’cause a scene.”

 

“Wasn’t you who made it!” the woman said laughingly. She strode forward toward Hanzo, hand extended. “You’re Hanzo, right? We spoke over the comm at the warehouse, but we haven’t rightly met! Sorry for the surprise appearance! Pleased to meetcha!”

 

She was not. She wore a large, silvery, blue-glowing mechanism on her chest--the chronal accelerator, he supposed--and from its illumination Hanzo could plainly see how tight her smile was, how it failed to meet her eyes, how stiffly and nervously she moved. Whoever this Agent Tracer was, she was not an actress. Hanzo felt his own mask slip smoothly into place, his face relaxing into a slight, formal smile while he forced his muscles to untighten even as the wave of adrenaline was peaking. He returned her handshake, squeezing with a gentle pressure. “Think nothing of it. It is a pleasure to meet you,” he murmured as he released her hand.

 

She did not relax even minutely. “Right! We can have a nice chat once we’re in the air, I got the Orca waiting outside. Shall I pop down and start getting Ang’s stuff, Jess?” she asked, turning to face the cowboy, tension evident in her shoulders even under the aviator jacket.

 

“Yeah,” said the cowboy quietly, lowering his hands at last. “She’s ready for ya.”

 

“Right! I’ll let them know you’re coming down!” she said as she broke into a jog, obviously anxious to get away. When she reached the hallway, she jerked to a stop so abruptly she almost fell over. “So, uh--if Jess didn’t get a chance to tell you about me, then uh, all that just now--” she began, looking uncertain.

 

“The effects of your temporal disassociation,” said Hanzo evenly. “Mitigated and brought under your control by the chronal accelerator.”

 

“Uh, yeah,” said Lena. “So--you knew but you didn’t, ah--”

 

“Agent Soldier: 76 gave me some information about it, but I confess I had no idea what to expect from the description. I should have asked for clarification sooner,” Hanzo said with an appropriately apologetic air. “Please forgive my reaction.”

 

Agent Tracer waved his apology off along with an unnaturally high giggle. “Oh, no, don’t mention it, I just really, _really_ didn’t want to startle you, is all!” She paused, and a momentary panic flickered over her face. “I mean, uh--” She floundered for a second before she recovered enough to almost shout, “I’ll just get started with Ang’s stuff, shall I? See you down there!” And she literally disappeared from sight, leaving nothing but a blue afterimage down the hallway and down the stairs.

 

Leaving Hanzo and the cowboy alone again.

 

“Listen, Shimada, I really was gonna--”

 

“But you did not,” cut in Hanzo smoothly. “No matter. Nothing came of it besides Agent Tracer’s obvious discomfort from nearly finding herself in your situation.” The cowboy bit his bottom lip at that, looking almost mournful, and Hanzo turned away from the sight of it, rolling his eyes once his face was hidden as he stepped to the window to see what kind of transport Agent Tracer had brought in. His eyes widened when he saw it sitting on the patio in the moonlight--it was an actual full-sized troop carrier, at least forty meters long. Despite its length, it looked short and bulky, which was not helped by the large, blocky, indistinct masses on either end. Were those the engines? But it had no wings--did it fly using antigrav pods? Hanzo was under the impression that antigrav’s energy requirements cubed with height, so he doubted it.

 

No matter. He was no engineer, and time was wasting. He turned away from the window and made for the hallway, brusquely enough to apparently startle the cowboy, who was still watching him. He raised an eyebrow at him as he passed. “The doctor said she would require help once Agent Tracer arrived.”

 

The cowboy nodded and followed, still wearing that unnecessary look. Hanzo stifled a sigh. He did not know whether to ascribe this latest chain of events to incompetence or malice, but in either case the consequences were probably small. He doubted he would be working much with Agent Tracer; the level of discomfort she was exhibiting was too high to surge from just an awkward introduction. Speaking of which--

 

“Go down before me.” The cowboy stopped and looked at Hanzo questioningly. Hanzo tried not to roll his eyes yet again. “Agent Tracer is probably waiting until I can see her so she does not startle me again.” The cowboy grimaced, but moved to go down the stairs before him, Hanzo following closely behind. And indeed, she was waiting near the foot of the stairs along with the doctor, rocking back and forth between the balls and heels of her feet. She flashed them a big smile as they descended.

 

“Alright there, guys? Ready to get moving?”

 

“Sure, Lena,” said the cowboy, a little distractedly. “You haven’ gotten the light stuff yet?”

 

“Oh! Well, uh, I just thought maybe I should wait until--uh--”

 

“Which are the heaviest cabinets?” asked Hanzo. “Perhaps I can help 76 with those.”

 

“Good idea,” said Dr. Ziegler, glancing at Tracer. “He’s already in there getting the first one. Jesse, will you grab the security subsystem?” The cowboy nodded, and Dr. Ziegler led Hanzo into the exam room, where 76 was bodily lifting the cabinet that had been plugged into the wall. “Not with your back! Use your legs, your legs!” the doctor chastised with a longsuffering air. 76 merely grunted as he carried the cabinet passed them. “Humph. Well, since he doesn’t seem to want to wait for help--even at the cost of his back--help me with one of these, if you would.”

 

“Of course.”

 

The cabinets were much heavier than their size implied, and Hanzo was immediately impressed with the Soldier’s sheer strength. The doctor was far from a fainting flower, but once the cowboy was done dealing with whatever the security subsystem was, he looked almost scandalized when he met them on the stairs and saw her carrying the leading end of the cabinet, despite Hanzo bearing most of the weight. “Naw, that won’ do, Angie, you let me handle that.”

 

The doctor scoffed. “Don’t patronize me, Jesse McCree. The Caduceus weighs fifteen kilos, and I carry it around all day more often than I care to admit. I’m fine.”

 

The cowboy backed off, hands raised, with a short laugh. “Alright, alright! Just tryin’ t’be gentlemanly.”

 

“Go and be gentlemanly to Soldier: 76,” she ordered. “See if you can keep him from throwing his back out.” The cowboy gave her a brief salute and padded past them back into the basement, despite the Soldier not having returned yet.

 

Agent Tracer was waiting at the top of the stairs. “Alright there, loves?”

 

“Are you waiting for us?” asked Dr. Ziegler, sounding surprised.

 

“Yeah, well--”

 

“Do not hold back on my account, Agent Tracer,” interjected Hanzo. “I do not wish to delay us. I know what to expect now, so you do not have to worry about me.”

 

Agent Tracer smiled uncertainly. “If you say so.” All the same, she waited until they were up and out the door and in the open before the slight blue flash appeared, whisking back and forth past them into the transport and into the safehouse, giving them a wide berth. The doctor led him past a wide ramp that was almost more window than ramp leading to the main hatch in the transport’s side, instead going underneath its upswept nose to another shorter ramp into a cargo bay dimly lit with red emergency lights. The doctor showed him, briefly, how to use the webbing hanging off the walls to secure the cabinet before they trotted back out to the safehouse, passing the Soldier and the cowboy on the way as they both carried a cabinet apiece. The cowboy refused to answer the doctor’s rather despairing question of how he had lifted it, but it may have been physically impossible; he was sweating and puffing far more than 76 was.

 

True to 76’s prediction, it took very little time to get all the supplies out of the safehouse and into the transport, thanks mostly to Agent Tracer. Hanzo was soon marveling not only at the chronal accelerator but at her stamina--in the brief moments where she paused because her path was blocked or to share a short quip with 76 or Dr. Ziegler or the cowboy, she seemed to be breathing hard but not panting. She must not be doing the equivalent of sprinting, then, but she was obviously expending a lot of energy as she literally ran circles around all of them. No wonder she was so slight--if the temporal disassociation had happened to someone with even a slightly bigger frame, the calorie requirements would probably be prohibitive.

 

They were ready to go by 0430. Hanzo helped with one last sweep of the interior, picking up his possessions as he left the basement for the last time. He paused at the bottom of the stairs before flicking off the lights, looking back at the barrack where he had slept.

 

He had the disturbing tendency to become--sentimental, he supposed--over any space he inhabited for more than a couple of days. It was one of his more regrettable traits, given his lifestyle for most of the year, and it was often irrational, given that it happened even when nothing good occurred in the space, as here. At least he had been fairly secure, though. Hanzo had no idea how he would be living in India, but he hoped however it was had a similar level of security for him to work with.

 

He turned his back and ascended the stairs for the last time. The cowboy was waiting for him off to the side of the landing. “Good t’go?” he asked quietly. Hanzo nodded, and the cowboy waved him out the door. The cowboy closed it softly behind them and keyed in the extended absence code as Hanzo headed for and up the ramp that led into the main body of the transport.

 

It was almost completely unlit inside, except for a wan luminescence wafting down what looked to be--a flight of stairs?--that must lead to the cockpit. However, it was obvious that the interior was rather cavernous, with an almost absurdly high ceiling and an awful lot of wasted space. Hanzo stood just inside the hatch, peering around with a pronounced frown. The transport might be full-sized, but it did not resemble any kind of military troop transport Hanzo had seen, personally or in movies.

 

He heard jingling spurs come up behind, and he moved a little further into the darkness to accommodate the cowboy, who slapped something on the wall. The ramp folded up and sealed the hatch with a hissing noise, and red emergency lights like those in the cargo hold came online, revealing that Hanzo had been right: it was mostly empty. There were hardly even any seats--just six in total, in jumpseat configuration, in groups of three facing each other across at least ten meters of space interrupted only by a conference table at the foot of an actual staircase-- _two_ flights of staircases now that Hanzo could see better, that did indeed lead up to a cockpit. Even from two stories down-- _two stories down_ \--he could see the soft blue light reflecting off some of the instrument panels as Agent Tracer strapped herself in.

 

“Welcome to Orca Airlines!” Now that the hatch was sealed, Agent Tracer appeared to consider it unnecessary to moderate her voice. “And a special welcome to any first time passengers!” Hanzo pursed his lips. Agent Tracer was overcompensating. “The flight attendants will be pleased to show you where to stow your personal effects. Please note that-- _bong!_ \--the ‘fasten your seatbelt’ light is on, so please take your seats as soon as possible. We’ll be taking off shortly!”

 

The doctor came down the stairs, smiling slightly, as the cowboy cleared his throat and said, “You can put your stuff over here, Shimada.” Hanzo followed him to some open shelves set into the wall in the corner. They were just deep enough to accommodate both Storm Bow and his cello case, alongside a few suitcases and duffel bags that must belong to the doctor and 76. The cowboy flung a couple of heavy duffel bags of his own off his shoulders, and a hardlight screen came online to secure everything. A flicker in his peripheral vision drew his eyes to another set of shelves above what looked almost like a loveseat set in the corner of the room, wrapped around another long table. Very odd, he thought, before he focused on the other corner of the room and saw-- _was that a basketball court?_

 

“Here, I’ll show you how t’get strapped in,” the cowboy offered, waving at the seats across from the hatch. Hanzo tore his eyes away from the half-court markings on the floor below a basketball hoop mounted high on the wall and followed the cowboy, though he hardly needed to be shown how to use the jump seat. He had been on enough roller coasters to know how to pull down a simple restraint snug against his chest and lap. To Hanzo’s slight surprise and slight chagrin, the cowboy did not cross to sit closer to the doctor as she strapped herself in on the other side of the transport, but to his credit he did leave the seat between them empty he pulled his own restraint down and wiggled in his seat, trying to get more comfortable.

 

Hanzo looked around for 76, but Agent Tracer began to speak. “Alright, everyone nice and snug back there? Then away we go! Prepare for takeoff!” The Soldier must be in the cockpit, then.

 

There was a swell of a low-frequency sound that Hanzo felt more in his chest than heard. It was still very dark outside, but the moonlight was just enough for a last glimpse of the safehouse through the enormous window set into the hatch as the transport rose straight up like an elevator. Hanzo nodded to himself as he watched more pinpricks of light come into view from the surrounding streets and houses. The transport was more than surprisingly quiet, it was nearly silent. No wonder Hanzo had not noticed it coming in. He would have to ask 76 or the doctor how it managed it, for they were already far too high to be using antigrav. He was also rather impressed with Agent Tracer’s piloting skills; she was a former fighter jet pilot according to her file, so he had expected her style to be more--

 

“Hang on, everyone! Here we gooo!” There was surge in both sound and motion as the transport accelerated. It was a strange sensation, both to feel like they were taking off while in mid-air and to be sitting sideways to the transport’s motion--Hanzo almost strained his neck. The transport was banking rather alarmingly at the same time, far more than in a civilian airliner. Hanzo gripped onto the restraint by instinct, setting his jaw as he watched some unsecured papers slide off the table in the corner, flutter to the ground, and then continue sliding across the floor from the tilt. _This_ was more along the lines of what he had expected. His stomach was already gurgling ominously.

 

Soon enough, though, the transport leveled off and Agent Tracer’s cheerful voice rang out again. “ _Bong!_ You are now free to move about the cabin!” The red emergency lights switched to a brighter, yellower color as the restraints popped open on their own, but Hanzo remained seated. His stomach was beginning a few attempts to flipflop. His airsickness was often just as intense as his seasickness, but so long as there was no turbulence it usually faded in a few minutes. He just needed that long to collect himself.

 

But luck was not on his side today.

 

“Shimada? We got about twenty minutes before we get t’Daisen, and we gotta go over a few things before then, I reckon.”

 

Hanzo took a deep breath and gingerly got to his feet, trying to stand at his full height rather than curve forward over his rebelling stomach. The cowboy was waving him over to the conference table at the foot of the stairs. Hanzo made his way over as steadily as he could, subtly gripping the edge when he was in range. He met the cowboy’s gaze evenly enough. He hoped.

 

“So you managed t’look over Boa Vista?” asked the cowboy. At Hanzo’s nod, the cowboy rubbed his chin. “Good, then you already know most everythin’ you need, ‘cept for specifics like lodging.” He stepped back from the table as a holographic globe appeared above it. Hanzo remained where he was--he was becoming less and less amenable to moving. The globe rotated until the Indian subcontinent was facing them, with two markers flashing nearly side-by-side in the interior of the country, close to the Bay of Bengal coastline. “We got Utopaea and we got the ‘Satellite Campus’,” said the cowboy, peering at the hologram. He raised a hand and spread his fingers, zooming in until the two markers spread apart east and west, showing the urbanized areas of the two settlements, separated by a yellow-green swathe that was itself bisected by a blue ribbon. A third marker, a tiny red dot, began to beat within the swathe, closer to the western urban area. “Here’s your drop point in Nallamala Forest. We’ve IDed this one from satellite imagery, but we’ll find an evac point closer t’your homebase as we’re comin’ in. Dependin’ on how much gear you got, we can have a moped or a sedan meet ya.”

 

“I would prefer the sedan,” said Hanzo, wincing a little at the tremor he could detect in his voice. He coughed and went on. “How secure will this ‘homebase’ be?”

 

The cowboy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Not as secure as the safehouse. It’s in an apartment complex that’s in an older part of the city, built before Vishkar invited themselves in. We didn’ want ya near downtown or the inner ring because Vishkar’s got a history of snoopin’ on residents in its developments, but we need you somewhere a tad more upscale t’match with your persona.”

 

“Which is?”

 

The cowboy looked sheepish. “Ayup, that’s a little up in the air. Winston’s been working on this for a while, but I--this got sprung on him pretty quick, so we’re scramblin’ a little here. That’s why I wanted t’talk to ya before Daisen.”

 

Hanzo nodded. “You wish to use one of my aliases.”

 

Perhaps the biggest surprise in reviewing the personnel files had been seeing “Shimada” in the list, sandwiched between Reinhardt and Soldier: 76. He had wondered if 76 had committed an error when sending him the files and sent him Genji’s after all, but when he opened it his full name had appeared, along with a mortifying amount of information. It had nearly sent him stomping off to Soldier: 76 and demanding a similar concession from him as from the doctor--until he saw just how _wrong_ most of it was.

 

His basic biographical information was correct, of course. Much of that would have been a matter of public record even without Genji’s inside information, to whom he had credited much of the file’s contents until he realized that the wording and the organization of his file was much different from the other agents. His file had been adapted, it seemed, from his criminal record.

 

Hanzo did not have an _official_ criminal record, of course--the Shimada-gumi’s influence had been too great to allow any level of law enforcement to get anywhere close to him personally while he was growing up and during his short stint as _kumichō._ Hanzo had succeeded in remaining off any publically available blacklists or security checklists since. As far as any public source was concerned, Shimada Hanzo had dropped off the face of the Earth in May 2066, and Hanzo had ultimately been pleased to discover that the sources available to Overwatch, though less certain of that, could not outright prove that he had not. Overwatch _had_ managed to find him however, and if nothing else Hanzo was relieved to know which alias led them to him. He should never have trusted a residence card that affirmed Australian citizenship.

 

Assuming his personnel file was genuine, of course. There was no other file like it--with one exception.

 

“I believe,” said Hanzo slowly, “that I have one that should suffice. It is one of my more developed ones, with a passport in its name.”

 

“What nationality? Japanese?” The cowboy looked surprised at Hanzo’s nod. “Damn, how’d you pull that one off?”

 

“Easily,” he replied. Japanese passports were among the most trusted in international travel and commerce, and the Shimada-gumi had had several contacts within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The hardest part had been selecting which was least likely to sell him out, but in the end Hanzo should not have been so surprised to find that someone even distantly related to his father could be so insipid. The bureaucrat had been almost pathetically excited to be involved with something so taboo, just as his father had been.

 

The cowboy studied him for a moment. “Huh.” Hanzo fought the urge to sigh as he prepared to once again reveal more than he would like to satisfy the cowboy--but to his surprise, the cowboy moved on instead. “You think the alias you got in mind would pair well with the techy, entrepreneurial type? The kind who’d hang out all day in a café workin’ on his latest startup? Athena, bring up As You Like It, would ya please?” The map disappeared, and in its place several holographic windows popped up, each showing a different chic coffee or tea shop. The cowboy waved and selected two photos and blew them up side-by-side. Each showed a fairly crowded shop, one with tables for two or three people, another that was more of a restaurant with booth-style seating.

 

“This,” said the cowboy, gesturing at the photos, making them jostle in the air a bit at the imprecise movement, “is the As You Like It Café. Officially, it’s like any other café in the inner ring, grab a quick bite and some chai t’go during your work break and all that, but in reality? It’s a Vishkar front. It’s meant t’be a demonstration of Vishkar hardlight technology ‘as utilized by private small business owners’, hence why it looks completely different in each photo.”

 

Hanzo blinked and nodded slightly as he studied the photos more closely. Now that he looked, the room in each photo looked to have roughly the same dimensions, but otherwise he would never have guessed it was the same establishment.

 

“Pretty innocuous as fronts go, but it does mean that the place is frequented by an awful lotta Vishkar employees, given how close it is t’the Satellite Campus. They prefer t’keep all of their assets close t’their chest while puttin’ on a show of supportin’ ‘local non-affiliated businesses’.” The cowboy paused as he brought up another pair of photos. One showed bucket seats arranged concentrically around a stage that had sprung up in the room, with what looked like a band setting up for some live music. The other looked more like a bar than anything else, with tall tables and stools off to the side. “We’ve got a lotta examples of what kind of clientele they attract, so if you got anythin’ that’d blend in, bring it along. As You Like It will be your jumpin’ off point for observin’ and eavesdroppin’ on Vishkar employees in a settin’ where they feel comfortable but isn’ entirely under their control, since it isn’ housed in a Vishkar development. And t’do _that_ , you get _this._ ”

 

The cowboy handed him an earpiece that looked very similar to the one that came with his comm but bulkier, though it was also sleeker and looked far more like a consumer-grade piece of technology. Hanzo weighed it in his palm for a moment before he raised it to his ear and begun adjusting it to fit. “Some kind of Moth?” he hazarded.

 

“Got it in one!” the cowboy declared with a grin. Hanzo narrowed his eyes slightly at the sight. He must have caught the small movement, because his grin faltered even as he asked, “You use one before, then?”

 

“Several times.”

 

“See, I knew you’d be a shoo-in for this mission. Hardly have t’tell you anythin’.” Hanzo refrained from raising an eyebrow, but he thought the cowboy _did_ flush, just a little, when his words caught up with him. “Uh--y’got any questions so far?”

 

Hanzo turned back to the photos. “You say I need to pass as an entrepreneur. How successful should I appear?”

 

The cowboy hummed. “Probably--small business owner on the cusp of a sudden expansion. You got five or six employees, but things are pretty casual and you don’ personally gotta be around much anymore. Once you find an investor or two, though, you’re gonna bring another twenty or thirty people in cuz your idea is just that good. How’s that sound?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips at the strange description--he had been expecting something a bit more clinical--but he nodded slowly. “Understood.”

 

“Alright then,” drawled the cowboy with another grin. He glanced up the stairs towards the cockpit. “We should be gettin’ there any time, now, so we should probably--”

 

The transport suddenly banked alarmingly to one side, throwing Hanzo off-balance. He recovered quickly enough, but it was soon tilting to the other side, and he felt his stomach clench hard enough to send a burp up his throat. He set his jaw and headed for his seat, ignoring the furrowed brow of the cowboy, but luck really was not with him at all today.

 

“Heya, Hanzo?” Agent Tracer’s voice, rather than coming over the PA, floated down the stairs.

 

“ _Yes?_ ” he bit out.

 

“Oops, sorry, mate, we’re circling the coordinates you provided and I wanted to make sure the landing zone was alright but you’re the only one who knows this area and I wanted to make sure to come in as stealthily as possible--”

 

Hanzo grimaced. At the moment he was mostly annoyed at her for provoking his airsickness again right when his stomach had gotten settled, but there was no reason to be so short with her. “On my way.” Hanzo moved towards the stairs. The cowboy moved with him.

 

“You, uh, you need any--”

 

“No,” snapped Hanzo. The cowboy jerked back. Hanzo scowled at himself. He was accomplishing nothing but betraying his own weakness by being disrespectful. “Apologies. I am--unaccustomed to these flying conditions.”

 

The cowboy nodded as Hanzo grasped the handrail at the base of the stairs and made his way up. He pressed his lips into a flat line at the huge landing between the flights of stairs--who had designed this monstrosity?--before he took advantage of a momentary leveling out of the transport to dash across the open space. He finally made it up to the cockpit, which had a much more streamlined and open arrangement than he expected, with two seats two meters apart on either side of an enormous augmented windshield that extended all the way up to the high ceiling, like a rose window in the apse of a cathedral. From this high up, the horizon was easily visible as the barest pink hue announced the oncoming dawn.

 

Agent Tracer waved at him around the side of her seat with a distracted smile. Yellow-orange text and diagrams glowed from an array of monitors, reflecting in her goggles. “Alright there, Hanzo?”

 

“Yes,” he answered simply, trying to approach with a confidence that was quickly eroding as his stomach continued to rebel. “You needed my assistance?”

 

“Yeah--Jess said you had a secret base hidden around here, right?” Hanzo heard a snort come from behind him. The cowboy had followed him up. Hanzo did not turn to face him, but he wished he could see how he looked when his colleagues revealed information that was more conjecture than fact, but he supposed he had already confirmed any conjectures by asking to be brought here anyway. “I’m holding us at 2000 metres, so you can take a look and make sure there’s no one around if you want.”

 

Hanzo gave a short nod. “Yes, that will be for the best. Thank you.” He glanced at the other seat, surprised to see it empty. Where was Soldier: 76? “Should I use the monitors here?”

 

“Ah, uh, sure!” said Agent Tracer with a laugh. “Jess, would you--?”

 

“Sure thing. C’mon, Shimada, let’s get you hooked up to the cameras. Athena, can we get a look-see?”

 

The orange text disappeared on the unused monitor, replaced with a bird’s eye view of verdant mountains sloping down to meet the muddy brown ribbon of the Omono River, the colors washed out by the low-light camera’s artificial brightening. The river cut a skinny, roughly triangular sliver of yellow-gray flatlands as it approached and then snaked around the foot of the mountains.

 

Hanzo could immediately see that there was likely to be no one anywhere close to his cache. A pair of landslides, one near the point of the triangle, the other about two kilometers south, covered the small two-lane highway that paralleled the path of the mountains. They had already been years old when Hanzo first arrived in the region, and they served as a convenient litmus test of the local authorities’ interest in the area. The municipality of Daisen had never been more than a gateway to the slightly larger city of Yokote on the other side of the wide valley and to the farmland in-between, but nowadays hardly anyone was interested in going any further than the confluence where the Tama flowed into the Omono. If that ever changed, the landslides would be cleared away, but as the years had passed the bright and broad spread of landslide debris was slowly darkening under a cover of greenery, and nobody seemed to take notice or care enough to do anything about it.

 

“Like this?” Hanzo asked as he raised a hand and spread his fingers. The image zoomed in a little, and Hanzo repeated the motion. It took a few quick tries as the map stuttered between zooming in and out, but Hanzo hit upon the correct motion soon enough. He zoomed in and studied first one landslide, then the other. As far as he could tell, there was not even a crude footpath cut over the landslides.

 

“Switch to infrared, please, if you would,” ordered the cowboy. The view switched to a field of purples and blues with a few green spots mixed in. Yellow squares appeared around a half-dozen dots scattered randomly around the area. “What’ve we got?”

 

“I am not detecting anything that looks to be human, omnic, or a drone,” announced Athena’s contralto voice. “Only wildlife.”

 

“Anythin’ dangerous? Boars, bears? Tigers?” The last word was said in a joking tone, but in the chaos of the Crisis, more than one zoo had been abandoned.

 

“I have not positively identified anything more fearsome than a housecat,” said Athena warmly. Hanzo perked up slightly. “Though, given your experience in Ilios--”

 

“Alright, alright, not with Lena listenin’,” the cowboy grumbled, face reddening.

 

“ _What_ happened?!” Agent Tracer had whipped her head around so fast Hanzo thought at first she had used the chronal accelerator.

 

The cowboy shook his head ruefully. “Get this old bucket on the ground first, then _maybe_ I’ll say.”

 

Agent Tracer giggled as she turned to Hanzo, too distracted to show her anxiety. “How’s this going to go down?”

 

Hanzo cleared his throat. “Approach from the southwest,” he murmured quietly, his voice sounding small compared to the brief burst of exuberance as he traced a line on the monitor screen. “I selected the grounds of an old school that is at the foot of a small ridge. It should help to shield us from anyone in Daisen.”

 

“Righto! You want to strap yourself in and be my copilot? Hell of a view!” she said excitedly, waving at the windshield. It was indeed, with a few silvery clouds catching the moonlight as the black earth beneath stretched towards the ever-brighter horizon.

 

Hanzo shook his head slightly, regrettably, as he stood. “I would not wish to be a distraction. Thank you for the offer.”

 

“Distraction? You know the characters I’ve flown with? Jess, love, tell him about the time I had to take that whole contingent of Blackwatch to Lima!”

 

“Aw, hell,” said the cowboy, scratching his head under his hat. “You gotta bring up old shit like that?”

 

“Yeah! Sit down, Hanzo, I’ll tell it if he won’t. Y’see, there’d been a rash of anti-Omnic riots all over the place, stretching us thin, so I was the only pilot available that knew their way around as big a bump as the Andes! So Commander Reyes comes running in, points at me and says, ‘Oxton, you’re honorary Blackwatch for the next seventy-two hours. With me.’”

 

“I apologize,” Hanzo cut in when Lena paused for breath, “but I was hoping to make some preparations as we landed. My--secret base--is some distance from the school, and--”

 

“Oh, not at all, we’ll have time afterwards! Jess, don’t let me forget to tell him! You can tell me about the Rikimaru Incident after! Off you go!” Agent Tracer turned back to the monitors as she banked the transport, more gently than before. Even so, Hanzo griped the handrail tightly as he descended, the cowboy preceding him this time.

 

Hanzo went to his case as soon as they got to the main level. All he needed were his keys, nightvision glasses, his pack and Storm Bow, but he did not have the heart to listen to Agent Tracer try to cover her discomfort with storytelling.

 

“Lena’s warmin’ up to you, you know.” Hanzo stiffened for a moment before he resumed rummaging through the case and then his pack, withdrawing and pocketing the keys and setting the glasses atop his head. The cowboy kept talking, despite being ignored. “She’s always been nervous about makin’ a good impression. I don’ think too much of it’s got much t’do with you personally.”

 

Hanzo threaded an arm through the straps of his pack and fastened the clasps on the case. He turned halfway and met the cowboy’s gaze for a moment with a cool look as he grabbed Storm Bow and his bundle of arrows before he went to sit in the jump seat.

 

“Coming in for a landing! _Bong!_ To your seats, please!”

 

The lights switched back to a dim red as the transport dropped in altitude and made a wide arc over the rugged mountains before approaching the valley once more. It soon coasted to a stop in mid-air over the darkened landscape. It was impossible to tell where they were from the view through the hatch--the valley was a sea of ink, devoid of all human habitation and artificial illumination, a rare sight in what would otherwise be prime real estate on Japan’s most populous island. The shadow of the Hokkaido Omnium stretched far in time and distance.

 

Eventually treetops began blocking the view, signalling that they were as close to landing as the hovering transport ever came. “ _Bong!_ ” called Agent Tracer. “Welcome to Daisen! The time is 5:04AM, the temperature is currently 18°C, and the forecast calls for partly cloudy skies and a high of 23°C. Thank you for flying Orca Airlines! If you are continuing on to Byans, Nallamala, and--”

 

“Ok, Oxton, you don’t have to recite our entire itinerary to everyone listening in.”

 

“Aw, c’mon, 76, my da was a British Airways pilot, I got the whole landing procedure memorized--”

 

Hanzo looked up towards the cockpit, curious to know where the Soldier was as he continued to argue with Agent Tracer. His voice had been somewhat muffled, so he was obviously not in a direct line-of-sight, but he was still at a loss as to where exactly the Soldier was. Was there a space below the stairs leading up to the cockpit? He had not thought to look while he was dashing from handhold to handhold.

 

But it was none of his concern, and he was wasting time.

 

The hatch hissed as it unlocked and unfolded to form the ramp. Hanzo stood and strode towards it, shouldering his pack and Storm Bow as he went.

 

“Hold up! You gonna need any help?”

 

“No,” answered Hanzo without breaking stride. “It should take me approximately one hour to return with my equipment. If anything happens, I have my comm.”

 

He managed to catch the cowboy muttering “Yeah. Alright,” before he paused at on the threshold of the hatch and scanned the surroundings briefly. The hatch was facing away from the derelict school building, but there was not much of a view to speak up in the pale moonlight. Thick, waist-high grass was choking the former trackfield as it extended out to meet a row of young trees that had sprung up on either side of a concrete road that led to the abandoned highway. Hanzo slipped on the nightvision glasses and flicked the world into bright green and black before wading into the grass and turning left, making a beeline for the ridge that sheltered the school.

 

It was a short distance, but the steep incline soon had Hanzo breathing heavily as he made his way up and over the spine, dodging tree trunks and thick bushes the whole way. One reason he had selected this site was his belief that the ridge would discourage anyone from stumbling upon the cache by accident, and his short journey certainly confirmed that even if someone was not discouraged, they would certainly be slowed down.

 

He crested the ridge with the night air burning pleasantly in his lungs and his thighs warm with exertion. Picking his way down the other side felt like a respite and a second wind, with his deep breaths now just as much to enjoy the fresh air scented with pine with a slightly sick undertone of ginkgo as from necessity.

 

He slowed when he came within sight of an open meadow that crowned a curiously flat-topped hill. The husks of several buildings stood along its edge, screening the meadow from view from further down the slope. Hanzo, working quickly but carefully, increased the resolution of the nightvision to maximum and began to make a circuit, Storm Bow at the ready. He stuck to just within the treeline for about half of it before crossing over to scurry below the blind walls of the ruined buildings, controlling his breathing, listening. Everything was quiet beneath the sounds of the night, nothing beyond the wind and the cicadas and the occasional creak of rotting wood and concrete.

 

He moved towards the the eastern end of the meadow, where one of the ruined buildings, long, low, and sturdy-looking, stood a little apart from the rest. Hanzo strained his eyes for any sign of forced entry through the heavy, rusty steel door on the side of the building closest to the trees. He pressed his back to the wall at its side for one last scan of the treeline before, lightning quick, he unlocked the door and slipped inside, loathe to release his hold on Storm Bow.

 

Inside, a faint red light greeted him, the long lasting LEDs shining down on a metal manhole cover. Hanzo nodded to himself as he moved deeper into the interior, three meters forward, left turn, four meters forward, left turn, making his way around an enormous apparatus that had once produced ozone. When he reached a large maintenance panel, he hooked Storm Bow around his shoulder and popped it out, easing it to the floor. He crouched and stepped into the innards of the machine, replacing the panel behind him before shuffling forward, looking around the cramped space as he waited for his feet to catch on the manhole that was the true entry to the cache.

 

His metal toes clinked against its edge. He hefted it up, ignoring the pain in his fingers from the too-small handles he had welded on himself. Before he had added them to ease entry, he had had to hide a crowbar somewhere nearby, and two years ago it was buried when its chosen hiding spot collapsed in an earthquake. Hanzo had admitted to himself that the system may have been overly cautious as he traveled to Akita and back for a new one.

 

He dropped the cover off to one side as gently as he could, hardly making a sound. He felt around on the ground for the gas detector, finding and turning it on before he found purchase on the ladder and started to climb down. He left the cover where it was in case he needed to escape pooled poisonous gas or uninvited guests, human or otherwise. But the detector remained silent as it tasted the stale air, and when Hanzo finally dropped to the ground and turned to scan the cache, no guests announced their presence.

 

He stood in a cavern of reinforced, non-porous concrete, facing numerous large crates arranged in three orderly rows, each atop several stacked wooden pallets. Behind the crates stood a low wall of sandbags encased in plastic sheets that divided the storage area from the majority of the cistern, in an attempt to provide plenty of room for any incoming rainwater that managed to leak in in case the outlets and overflows became blocked. Off to one side was a maintenance tunnel meant for heavy machinery to periodically enter and clean out silt and debris--the deciding factor to utilize this place when he had stumbled on it eight years ago, although it had also proven to be the most problematic part of the cache to hide. The tunnel’s surface entrance was a long ramp that led out to the parking lot that all the buildings above shared. It was impractical to hide it, so once he had brought in the 3D printer and the crates (and that had been the feverish, exhausting work of an entire summer), Hanzo had opted to simply drop in numerous tree branches and random assorted debris to both block it and to give the illusion of longstanding abandonment. The cache’s relative isolation was its biggest defense--anything more had been prohibitive in both expense, time, and effort.

 

Hanzo wasted little time; a glance at his comm revealed he only had thirty-five minutes to work with; he had spent longer than he thought casing out the cache’s entrance. He moved swiftly from crate to crate, each sound echoing incessantly as he moved and lifted creaking lids and rummaged around. Everything was meticulously organized, though the contents were often tightly packed together. He extricated a large rolling suitcase that, despite its size, could be worn as a backpack. It would be supremely awkward trying to get it up the ladder and out the manhole, but it was the only piece of luggage that could hope to contain all the civilian clothes he would require plus what he might need to infiltrate a highly secure Vishkar facility. He packed the latter first and then hid it all beneath a layer of clothes, wrapped in plastic bags to guard against humidity and rot, but it must all smell musty. He would need to do a lot of laundry when he arrived in the Satellite Campus.

 

Last of all he went to a crate to the side of the 3D printer--perched on top of the highest stack of pallets, covered with multiple plastic sheets and a tarp, with an awning set up over it for good measure--and withdrew bundle after bundle of arrows, packing them as tightly together in the suitcase as possible, filling in every last gap. There were plenty left over, but if he had time he would have unpacked the printer and made replacements. He would have to settle for coming back some time in the future.

 

But what gave him the most comfort was retrieving one of the spare quivers out of the same crate. It was so amateurish to be running around with a bunch of carbon fiber sticks wrapped in Velcro.

 

Finally, grunting, he slung the suitcase onto his shoulders, his pack now hanging off his front like a lumpy child. He threw a last lingering glance over the cache. The nightvision revealed no evidence of any water damage, there were no troubling dripping noises or a smell of mold or decay, but he could not expect his luck to hold forever. The meadow above was, quite literally, a steadily growing threat. Roots must be infiltrating and slowly cracking and crushing the concrete, though as yet there was no sign of it here below. Hanzo had been tempted more than once to spray some herbicide over the whole thing, but he felt it would make the site too conspicuous, given how the local plant life was attacking every other concrete structure in the area.

 

What would probably be necessary would moving the cache altogether to some other site. Hanzo’s most secure cache outside of Hokkaido was in a former municipal maintenance vehicle depot that was built into the side of a mountain, and he had been on the lookout for a similar site since. There was almost certainly one somewhere within the Forbidden Four Prefectures, which would make it easier to move all the equipment without alerting the Prefectural Police or the JSDF, but Hanzo was not prepared to move everything over the landslide debris again. It was a problem, one he might have anticipated if he had had the audacity to expect to live so long eight years ago.

 

Well. Hopefully, as he had thought back then, it would not matter for much longer.

 

Hanzo shimmied up the ladder awkwardly, suppressing more grunts as the suitcase bumped and dragged against the concrete wall when the ladder became enclosed in the cistern’s roof. It was a tight squeeze, but he managed to both quickly test the lights in the cistern’s ceiling from the fusebox just below the manhole and clamber out without having to somehow shrug the suitcase off and push it out ahead of him as he had feared. The suitcase did immediately bang loudly against some of the innards of the ozone disinfectant system, though, so he hurriedly shrugged it off, listening intently as the noises died away. Only then did he replace the cover and, carrying the suitcase in his arms, retrace his steps back to the entrance of the former water purification plant. Then, the suitcase back on his back, Storm Bow at the ready, and quiver full, he slipped back outside, locking the door behind him before jogging heavily to lose himself among the trees.

 

He only had about ten minutes, but the awkward weight on his back had him dreading the quickest route up and over the ridge. He was about to find a good spot to crouch as he radioed in the delay, but the problem was soon taken care of for him.

 

“Shimada? You readin’ me? What’s your status?”

 

Hanzo tapped at the new earpiece, impressed that it worked with his comm despite his not having manually synced it. “I am inbound, but I will take more time returning than I anticipated.”

 

“You doin’ alright? Your signal got awfully weak there for a few minutes.”

 

“Yes, that was to be expected. I apologize for not advising you.”

 

“No problem, Shimada. When’re you gettin’ in?”

 

Hanzo blinked and furrowed his brow. “Approximately fifteen minutes from now.”

 

“Alright, see you soon.”

 

Hanzo shook his head as he turned to his left and headed to cross the ridge over the less steep terrain closer to its toe. The cowboy had always been fairly informal in his radio communications, but now it was bordering on familial. He had suspected before that it was a deliberate show of disrespect more than anything else, a way of letting him know how little the cowboy thought of both him and his missions, but now the tone, while even more unprofessional, was--softer, with less contempt and exasperation underlying his words. Completely in line with the cowboy’s apparent new strategy of appearing congenial.

 

Hanzo supposed it was an improvement. If nothing else, he was not feeling his hackles rise with each word out of the cowboy’s mouth. If this was the cowboy’s new game, at the very least Hanzo would be able to endure him easier while he waited for him to reveal his endgame. At present, it appeared to be nothing more than a reaction to the increased scrutiny the cowboy had attracted with his incompetence. If that was the case, it would probably only last as long as the cowboy felt he was being monitored. Right now it was Soldier: 76, Dr. Ziegler, and Agent Tracer who were watching. Soon it would be Genji. Hanzo would have to wait until the cowboy was reasonably sure no one was listening in to see if he would drop the act or would maintain it even then for verisimilitude, in order to increase the effect when he _did_ drop the act at some opportune moment.

 

The sun had not yet caught up with them. Without the glasses, the darkness would only have been broken by the moonbeams that found the occasional opening in the thick canopy above. Every so often a small group of tapering pine trees allowed more silvery blue light to fall to the ground, but otherwise Hanzo would have been in a bad way if he had had to rely entirely on his own sight.

 

Though it took a bit longer, he was soon crossing the crest of the ridge once more, much lower down than before, though with his large load he was breathing as hard if not harder than before. He could already see the moonlight glinting off the hull of the transport as it sat in the middle of the trackfield through a break in the trees. He hastened his steps, approaching the hatch almost head-on rather than from the side as he had left it.

 

“Shimada! Hold up a sec!”

 

Hanzo stopped dead in his tracks, dropped into a crouch and let the suitcase fall off his back, freeing his arms. The cowboy had not used the comm; he had shouted from somewhere off to Hanzo’s right. He tapped his earpiece, but before he could say anything, the cowboy called out again, “Sorry, sorry! You disappeared over thataway, so I was expectin’ you t’come back the same way. Shoulda known you wouldn’ take the same way twice.”

 

Hanzo rose slowly. He could see the cowboy picking his way through the tall grass, struggling a bit. He was wearing his red cape again, wrapped around his shoulders and hanging down his back where it caught against the grass, making a dry rustling noise that Hanzo could hear even from a distance. Hanzo tensed at the sight of it--he had only seen the cowboy wear it in battle.

 

He waited. The transport stood a fair distance away. The cowboy was avoiding using the comm. Whatever he intended, he wanted no witnesses or record. Hanzo tapped at the comm on his belt, wondering if he should attempt to open a line to the Soldier or the doctor before the cowboy was within earshot--but such an action might be considered paranoid, especially if the cowboy caught on and did nothing to merit it.

 

The cowboy was panting slightly when he finally approached. “Damn,” he said, coughing a little as he wiped his brow with a gloved hand. “Dusty. Only thing this place has more than grass is pollen.” Hanzo did not reply; he merely removed the nightvision glasses, hoping his expression would be visible enough in the moonlight to encourage the cowboy to get to the point. It worked, somewhat. The cowboy raised his hands to placate what he saw in Hanzo’s face, looking at him imploringly. “I know, I know, you don’ want nothin’ t’do with me beyond the bare minimum, but I just gotta say something. It was what I was supposed t’do when I went out t’talk with you back at the safehouse, and I’ll make it quick.”

 

Hanzo could not help raising an eyebrow at the cowboy’s serious, candid tone.

 

The cowboy, for his part, set his jaw, stood straight, and swept his hat off, holding it to his chest with one hand. He locked somber eyes on Hanzo’s, lips in a solemn line. “I’m sorry.”

 

Hanzo almost burst out laughing, from sheer incredulity. What kind of play was this?

 

He managed to restrain himself, burying the impulse as he tried to keep his face smooth and impassive. It was enough not to tip off the cowboy at any rate, because he continued without pausing. “I’ve admitted wrongdoing, but I haven’ rightly apologized. I dunno if 76 or Genji told you, but you should know that this is an order--”

 

Ah, an official apology. That explained it.

 

“--but I shoulda done it regardless.”

 

Hanzo blinked slowly, unimpressed.

 

“I say that because, well, while 76 and Winston think you deserve one enough to order me to, I think you do, too.” Hanzo blinked again, tiredly this time. How much effort was the cowboy going to expend trying to convince him of something that was not true?

 

But the cowboy apparently anticipated that line of thought. “I know,” he said with a beautiful show of embarrassed contrition, “that you have zero--less than zero reason t’believe me. I’ve done nothin’ to earn your trust. I haven’ made good on the contract you made with Winston and me--and Genji.” Hanzo narrowed his eyes. “Both Winston and Genji trusted me to honor it, and I didn’. Now I’ve lost that. Their trust. Genji told me that himself.”

 

The cowboy paused, biting his lip for a moment. “That--I don’ mind sayin’ how much of a blow that is. Me and him’ve been through a lot together. He trusted me t’give you a fair shake, and I blew it. More than that, I put all my teammates’ lives on the line, good folks that I’ve known for almost twenty years, and I let them all down because I couldn’ get my head outta my ass.”

 

Hanzo turned away, folding his arms in front of his chest to try to ward off this onslaught of empty words--but no, not entirely empty. Genji _had_ been disappointed in the cowboy, enough to want him discharged as Hanzo’s handler, and if nothing else--if nothing else the cowboy had no reason to hide how close he was to Genji and how highly he valued him. That had always been plain to Hanzo, given how ferociously the cowboy defended him from threats both real and imagined. Like Hanzo once had--for a little while.

 

Hanzo swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump in his throat. Focus, he told himself. You must concern yourself with the cowboy now. Solely the cowboy.

 

When he spoke, he was relieved that his voice was nearly normal. “I have already told you,” he said, quietly, now wary of any eavesdroppers, “that your lack of trust is entirely appropriate. You are right to say that trust is earned. My debt is beyond payment. You should have shown more wisdom before and during the raid, that is true, but any apology owed is to your teammates, not to me.”

 

“You _are_ a teammate,” the cowboy protested.

 

Hanzo gave a long sigh. “Do not trouble to parrot whatever words Genji has given you, at least not until he is listening,” he muttered. “He will owe _you_ an apology for forcing you into this situation, when all this is over.” The cowboy furrowed his brow for a moment before he opened his mouth to say something, but Hanzo cut him off, in a louder voice. “You have fulfilled your orders. If Agents Winston, Soldier: 76, or Genji ask, I will report my satisfaction.”

 

The cowboy scrutinized him for a moment. “You will, huh?” he said in a soft, contemplative tone. After a moment he rolled his shoulders back. “You got no reason t’believe any word of mine, but I will say this: I take my debts seriously, Agent Shimada. I always pay my dues.”

 

Whatever foolishness _this_ was, Hanzo was determined to put an end to it. The pointed earnestness of the cowboy’s words grated on his nerves, given how insincere it must be. “How fortunate, then,” he said, just loud enough for the cowboy to hear, “that the unworthy dead are owed nothing.”

 

The cowboy’s eyes sharpened. “How fortunate, then,” he parroted back in an exaggerated drawl, even for him, “that yer not dead-- _or_ dyin’.”

 

Hanzo stiffened, but the cowboy did not allow him time for anything else, much less consider a biting retort. With fluid motions, he plopped his hat back on his head and half-turned to wade through the grass, waving a metallic hand at the transport. “Let’s get a-goin’. Got a long flight ahead of us.”

 

It took a few moment to collect himself, forcing down the strong wave of rage that had risen from the cowboy’s-- _presumption_ , before Hanzo did as he was ordered, hoisting the suitcase back on before following the half-trampled track the cowboy was leaving through the grass in his wake.

 

Not dead or dying. What did the cowboy know.

 

Hanzo continued to fume as he followed the cowboy up the ramp and into the red-lit interior of the transport. He returned the greetings of the doctor and Agent Tracer robotically as he unloaded everything onto the shelves alongside his cello case, arranging everything so he could easily get at Storm Bow once they were in flight. The cowboy’s timing was either disastrous or impeccable--Hanzo wanted nothing more than to be alone, and here he was, trapped on a twelve-hour flight to _Nepal_ of all places. Since solitude and alcohol were not available, he would settle for distraction by disassembling, inspecting, and reassembling Storm Bow.

 

He stewed in his own irritation as Agent Tracer guided the transport back into the air, paying no attention to her playacting and as little as possible to his own literal bellyaching, though the transport’s motions were much smoother as it ascended to cruising altitude and pointed its nose westwards. As soon as Agent Tracer _bong!_ -ed and the restraints popped open, he was on his feet, heading for Storm Bow.

 

But Agent Tracer got to him first.

 

He was pleased that he had been able to keep his word and keep his head when she nearly literally popped up at his side. It seemed to be a test, really--she was close, but still out of range of a suckerpunch, and despite her speed in almost everything she did, he still caught the wary expression on her face before it morphed into something friendlier.

 

“Right! Athena’s got the bridge, so I can finish that story and hear yours!”

 

He blinked. She had been serious? She had been covering her nervousness earlier, and he had provided an excuse not to be in his presence any longer than necessary. Hanzo had limited experience with British culture in general, though he understood that there were myriad regional differences, so he supposed it was possible that there might be some cultural imperative to complete a story once it had begun. There could be little else to drive Agent Tracer to seek him out, unless she merely loved storytelling enough to ignore or forget her misgivings.

 

Either way, he supposed it was only polite to listen. He turned towards her and nodded. “Of course, Agent Tracer.”

 

She waved a hand. “Oh, none of that ‘Agent Tracer’ shite. Just Tracer, or Oxton if you don’t like using codenames outside of battle.”

 

“Of course, ah, Ms. Oxton,” tried Hanzo, his irritation receding beneath his discomfort at appearing too familiar with anyone so uncomfortable with him.

 

She gave a little twitter of a laugh. “I suppose I can live with ‘Ms. Oxton’,” she said with a grin. “Does that mean you’d prefer ‘Mr. Shimada’? Or, or--” she hedged, wrinkling her nose, “What would it be? Shimada-san?”

 

He shook his head. “I do not have a preference,” he said, fibbing a little. “Shimada” on its own was disrespectful and had become particularly unsavory given the way the cowboy had been using it, but--even with honorifics like “mister” and “san”, the family name was increasingly grating since he learned Genji was alive. Before then he had avoided using it purely because he was concealing himself at all times, but now, to be addressed as a Shimada as Genji walked the earth as living proof of the family’s legacy of senseless cruelty--

 

Ms. Oxton took it out of his hands entirely. “Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stick with ‘Hanzo’. I’m on a first-name basis with almost everyone anyway, don’t want to break my streak! Plus, it’s a nice name, ‘Hanzo’. Be a shame not to say it. Anyway, you looked like a man on a mission when I came down. Were you getting something?”

 

“Yes,” replied Hanzo, reeling a little. Ms. Oxton was a strange woman. Hanzo felt a little off-balance from what should have been a brazen overreach of familiarity, but it was disarmed by a strange undercurrent of--determined sincerity? Something like. He would give her another out all the same, for both her and his own sakes, in case this was all a charade she had trapped herself in. “My bow. It requires an inspection.”

 

“Grand! Here, I’ll clear off the rec table,” she said, and in a flash she was over by the table set into the corner. “Torbjörn uses it as a worktable all the time, since Athena does a great job avoiding turbulence.”

 

“Thank you,” said Hanzo after a brief pause. He turned to see the cowboy observing them from halfway up the stairs. He looked contemplative, watching Ms. Oxton before he realized Hanzo was watching him. He nodded and continued up. Hanzo felt another twinge of irritation at the cowboy listening in on their conversation, but in fairness he would have done the same in the his place. He collected his bow and work tools and joined Ms. Oxton at the cleared-off table as she stuffed the last of a few sheets of paper under some books on the shelves backing the sofa-like seats before turning and switching on a reading lamp set into the table for him.

 

Ms. Oxton launched into her story as soon as Hanzo laid Storm Bow and his tools on the table, even before he had time to sit. She was, he discovered as he released the string and swiftly took Storm Bow apart, incredibly frank, freely admitting to a plethora of compromising or non-flattering details as she described her nervousness at meeting and working with the reputedly fearsome Commander Reyes.

 

”So I follow him into the elevator, and we’re heading down to the hanger, and I’m absolutely terrified! He looks at me, standing at attention like I’m waiting for inspection on the parade grounds, and do you know? He says, ‘Knock knock.’ Commander Reyes, savior of humanity and commanding officer of Blackwatch, wants to tell me a knock knock joke?! Madness. Absolutely bonkers. But of course all I can say is, ‘Who’s there?’ And he says, ‘Get.’ ‘Get who?’ ‘Get that stick out of your ass. _Relax_ , Oxton. First thing you do when you’re working with me is carefully extract that stick and _chuck_ it at whoever’s closest. You’ll need it when you meet my agents.’ And he was right, Lord, was he right. Never saw a more serious looking lot when they were marching onboard the transport, but as soon as that hatch sealed and it was just them and Reyes and me? It was uncanny how each and every one of them just pulled hats out of nowhere, including the Commander! Just whipped out a beanie and pulled it on, and behind him there’s people putting on tricorns, balmorals, fezzes, turbans, bandanas--someone even had a Stetson!” she called, cupping her hands around her mouth.

 

“Sounds like a handsome fella!” came the cowboy’s reply, floating down the stairs. Ms. Oxton grinned. Hanzo refrained from rolling his eyes.

 

“And you know who was the only one without a hat? Me, that’s who, and they let me have it. Commander Reyes could tell me a knock knock joke, but not to bring a hat? Terrible, awful man!” she said with a wistful sigh and a smile.

 

Hanzo frowned. He knew who Gabriel Reyes was, of course, and he did not know which was more surprising: that the man had apparently been in command of Blackwatch rather than serving in an auxiliary role as was publicized, or that a former Overwatch agent would be reminiscing about him in a positive light.

 

Ms. Oxton continued, sharing light anecdotes about the mission and how the Blackwatch agents had spent the flight roughhousing and teasing the “newest Blackwatch recruit” to no end. “I was never so relieved in my life when that hatch opened,” she mused, her chin set into a cupped hand as she watched Hanzo look for wear or cracks. “It was exhausting, even for me. I thought myself the partying type of girl, but I didn’t know what partying was until I was on a Blackwatch flight, that’s for sure.”

 

Hanzo grunted. So Blackwatch had been full of undisciplined party animals? That was--

 

\--strangely comforting.

 

“But when we were coming for a landing--phew! It was like flipping a switch. Everyone got real quiet, real serious. A few whispers about the plan, whatever it was--I wasn’t in the know--then the hatch opens, they troop out, and you haven’t seen anything until twenty people just _vanish_ , right off the tarmac and into the mountains, in less than thirty seconds. It was like I’d just flown an empty bird 9000km for no reason. Spooky. And I just puttered around the transport for a day, went into town to check out the scene, that sort of thing, and the next morning I’m running some routine checks and suddenly, surprise! Twenty people march up the ramp, take their seats, and Commander Reyes has me revving up the engine and flying us home. Didn’t get to be Blackwatch for more than forty hours, if that.

 

“But you know what they brought back with them?” She withdrew a smartphone from a jacket pocket, and started poking and swiping. After a few moments, she slid it into Hanzo’s field of vision. Ms. Oxton smiled at the camera, her eyes obscured behind the glare in her apparently omnipresent goggles, with her arm wrapped snug against the waist of a woman with long dark red hair who was laughing, her teeth blindingly white from the flash. Perched on Ms. Oxton’s spiky brown hair was a dark bowler hat. “Still teased me the whole way back, of course, but I didn’t get as many noogies. I still have it in our flat back home--I was going to wear it on any other Blackwatch missions I chauffeured, but I never got the chance, sadly.”

 

“Shame,” drawled the cowboy as he came down the stairs. “It looked real good on ya.” Ms. Oxton giggled as she put her phone away and the cowboy stopped across from them, surveying the orderly spread of Storm Bow parts. “Everythin’ look okay, Shimada?”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo, not looking up from the threads where the grip screwed into one of the limbs.

 

Silence fell for a couple of beats as both the cowboy and Ms. Oxton waited for an elaboration that never came. Finally, Ms. Oxton coughed and ventured, “So, the Rikimaru Incident.”

 

Hanzo suppressed a sigh and looked up. “Yes, you mentioned that before. Forgive me, but I do not know what you were referring to.”

 

She blinked at him. “Oh! Really? It’s, uh, just something that--that Genji told me, just a few weeks ago. Something about an eating contest that you won?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips as he thought. An eating contest? At Rikimaru? He and Genji had eaten there many times, of course, but it had never hosted anything like an eating contest, and Hanzo would never have participated even if it had. “Perhaps he was thinking of someone else.”

 

“No, he definitely said it was you! Let’s see, you two were young, and you had gone out after your lessons, and the owner said something about eating at least five bowls of ramen?”

 

Oh.

 

“I--” Hanzo started, but he paused to gather himself when he felt his cheeks begin to heat. He dropped his head back down as he grabbed a can of anti-corrosion sealant and began to spread it across the threads more determinedly than necessary. “It was not an eating contest. Genji must be misremembering it. He was very young.”

 

“Really? Then what was it?” Ms. Oxton asked, leaning forward and tilting her head, trying to see his face.

 

He grimaced. “A childish, ill-considered powerplay, nothing more.”

 

“Whaaat? A powerplay? Weren’t you two around five or six?”

 

“Lena,” said the cowboy quietly.

 

“What, don’t _you_ want to know what happened? A five-year-old making a powerplay at a ramen shop?! It’s got to be cute!”

 

“It was not ‘cute’,” muttered Hanzo. “It was the first time I tried to use my family’s reputation to threaten someone.”

 

There were a few beats of silence. Hanzo focused on the bow, spreading the sealant slowly and smoothly, careful not to let it pool or dry too thick anywhere. He could only imagine how the other two were looking at each other, shaking their heads at how early he had begun taking advantage of his family’s power.

 

“How does a _five-year-old_ threaten someone?” Ms. Oxton blurted. “C’mon, you can’t leave it like that!” Hanzo’s head snapped up and he stared at her. “Go on, then! Genji was sure it was an eating contest, but the way he described it didn’t make any sense! No one else seemed to be there, and he _did_ say it was strange that you would do something like that! So what really happened? Don’t tell me you were already a yakuza strongman at age five!”

 

“Yes, do tell.” Hanzo turned to see the doctor coming down the stairs, her comm in her hands but with a look of curiosity on her face. “Genji’s always telling tall tales. It’ll be nice to hear something about his family from a more reliable source.”

 

Hanzo was at a complete loss. A more reliable source? What could she possibly be basing _that_ conclusion on?

 

“Go on then! You were a five-year-old yakuza strongman,” Ms. Oxton prompted.

 

He swallowed. “Genji was five. I was eight.”

 

“Oh, because that makes more sense, an _eight-year-old_ yakuza strongman,” laughed Ms. Oxton.

 

Hanzo ducked his head again, picking up another component of Storm Bow to apply sealant to. “We were--in those day we were often allowed to wander, though not far. I am sure--” he paused. How did one explain the bodyguards that had discreetly followed the young Shimada brothers to prevent their assassination? By explaining nothing. “We had finished our lessons for that day and Genji did not like what was being prepared for dinner, so he asked me to take him to Rikimaru. Our father allowed us to go. We went, but when we arrived I discovered that I had forgotten my coin purse.”

 

“Coin purse?” asked Ms. Oxton, eyes shining. “I had one of those back in the day!”

 

“Coin purses?” asked the cowboy. “People’re still acceptin’ those, Lena? You’ve called _me_ old fashioned all this time and you’re still usin’ _coins?_ ”

 

Ms. Oxton leaned across the table and lightly punched the cowboy’s arm. “Oi, go on with you!” she exclaimed as he backed away, grinning. “Go on then,” she said to Hanzo, settling back.

 

“Ah--” he said with uncertainty. “I--had recently become--more aware of my family’s business and dealings. I had remarked to my mother that certain shop owners were very--kind--to us and she explained that their ‘kindnesses’ were actually tribute and bribes.”

 

Ms. Oxton let out a quiet “Oh.”

 

Hanzo forged on. “I thought I could take advantage of that. I went up to old Nomura-san and--demanded our favorite ramen for free. But Nomura-san--he _was_ under the protection racket, but he had been dealing with the Shimada all his life, so he had certain privileges in deference to his age and his fealty. He felt he could get away with being slightly daring. He asked me, ‘Have you passed your rite of passage?’”

 

The cowboy chuckled, low and deep. Hanzo paused, looking over his audience. The doctor and Ms. Oxton were listening with polite interest, but the cowboy had a rather fixed expression, his slight smile looking almost painted on. Strange, and rather disturbing. He pressed on, anxious to get the story over with. “That frightened me. I did not know exactly what my family’s business was, but I had known it was extremely serious all my life. Nomura-san saw my fright and offered to forget my impudence if I could eat five full-sized bowls of ramen. A fitting punishment, he thought, but he underestimated my fear. I was able to finish them, and he allowed us to go. I do not know if anyone besides the three of us ever knew of it.”

 

“So--” Ms. Oxton said slowly. “You didn’t, uh--”

 

Hanzo sighed. Of course Genji would include that detail. It was the only part that made the tale amusing, he supposed.

 

“I did vomit,” he admitted. “On the way home. My tutors were teaching me dining etiquette, so I knew to chew my food thoroughly and as slowly as I dared, which was sufficient to eat the bowls, but not to keep them down. It was lucky that it happened in the street, and not in Rikimaru or at home.”

 

Ms. Oxton laughed. “There’s the embellishment! The way Genji told it, you were blowing chunks all over the table!”

 

The thought of Genji telling this to his comrades did nothing for Hanzo’s mood, but--he _had_ been a child. “He was very young. It happened soon after we left, so it must have become conflated in his memory.”

 

“At least you made it to the street, you poor thing,” said the doctor. “Were they good, at least? The ramen bowls?”

 

Hanzo grunted. “Of course. Nomura-san made sure to give me his bonsai ramen. It was his specialty, but it also had the most ingredients, to make my task more difficult.”

 

“Bonsai ramen? Like the tree? What’s that?” asked Ms. Oxton.

 

Hanzo opened his mouth to answer, but the doctor was extremely quick.

 

“ _Mein Gott,_ ” she gasped, staring wide-eyed at her comm. “You ate _five_ of these by yourself?” She showed the screen first to the cowboy, who gave a low whistle, then to Ms. Oxton.

 

“ _What?!_ ” she yelped, grabbing the comm out of the doctor’s hand. “You didn’t say--when you said _ramen_ I was thinking noodles! What’s all this?”

 

Hanzo was nonplussed. “You are thinking of freeze-dried ramen,” he said. “With flavor packets. The ramen in shops and from street carts is much better.”

 

“I’ll say!” Ms. Oxton was still staring at the the screen. “Eggs, shrimp--and is that pork? What else do they cram in there? Jesse!” she said accusingly, standing on her seat and pointing at the cowboy. “You’ve been here a thousand times, and you never told me about ramen?!”

 

The cowboy chuckled. “It’s not like it’s a secret, Lena. Rikimaru’s a little bit of one, but not ramen.”

 

Ms. Oxton gaped at him. “You’ve been to Rikimaru? When?”

 

The cowboy shrugged. “That’s classified,” he drawled mysteriously. Hanzo snorted softly. The cowboy immediately focused on him. “You got somethin’ t’say, Shimada?” he said in an adversarial tone.

 

Hanzo immediately stiffened and shot him a sharp look, expecting to see a scowl or at least a frown. Instead he got a grin that swiftly faltered. “No,” the cowboy said, lifting his hands. It was becoming a common gesture. “I just mean--I didn’ mean like _that_ , I just meant--were you gonna--say--somethin’?” he finished awkwardly, shifting on his feet.

 

A swift glance at both the doctor and Ms. Oxton revealed that they had not escaped the sudden tension. Hanzo desperately wanted out of this conversation.

 

“No. Nothing.” He returned his full attention to his bow. There was an awkward silence that Hanzo could only half-ignore as he reassembled Storm Bow with practiced movements. He tested the tension in the limbs but opted to leave it unstrung while they were in flight. When he finished he stood to put it away, and that finally seemed to allow the others to break up the little group, Ms. Oxton saying something about making a phone call, the doctor something about checking in with someone, the cowboy nothing at all.

 

By the time Hanzo returned to collect his tools, Ms. Oxton had disappeared and the doctor was sitting at the rec table, working on her comm. The cowboy had not moved, but when Hanzo began scooping his tools into their small workbag, he cleared his throat. “I didn’ mean,” he began, drumming his fingers on his leg as he spoke, “t’sound so, uh--like I wanted t’start somethin’.”

 

Hanzo glanced at the doctor, who gave a valiant impression of not being there. “I apologize for misreading your intent,” he said.

 

The cowboy took a deep breath. “Naw, I’m not lookin’ for an apology, I just--I understand. Why you’d--assume that. I’ll be workin’ on that.”

 

Hanzo nodded stiffly in reply before turning away, at a loss of what the cowboy wanted to hear, if anything. He put his tools away in the cello case and unclipped his comm from his belt as he sat in one of the jump seats, despite the plastic separator that cupped each of his legs in a slightly uncomfortable position. He did not wish to importune the doctor with his presence if she wished to sit at the rec table. He prepared to reread the mission profile, wishing that he could have brought along one of the tablets from his cache so he could read a book or watch some movie instead.

 

But the AI appeared to anticipate his problem. A chat window appeared on the screen as soon as he unlocked the comm.

 

> >Athena
> 
>  
> 
> Mr. Shimada, as this is your first mission
> 
> aboard the MV-261, I’d like to inform you
> 
> about the entertainment system. It is
> 
> available via your comm and includes a
> 
> large amount of literature, movies,
> 
> games, and music. I apologize that it has
> 
> not been updated since August 31, 2071,
> 
> but the collection is still quite extensive.
> 
> If you need any assistance, do not
> 
> hesitate to ask.

 

He stared at the message for a long while before mechanically typing “Thank you,” in the reply line. He hesitated for a moment, but mentally shrugged as he sent it. AI or not, she had done him a service. He brought up the main screen, where a new icon marked “OrcaVision” had appeared.

 

Even with the distraction, however, he was hyperaware of the others in the room. The cowboy had settled at the rec table, around the corner from the doctor. They also focused on their comms for the most part, but the two had periodic conversations. Hanzo could easily follow them even from the other side of the room, as they made no effort to lower their voices. They spoke mostly of fairly mundane topics, but it surprised Hanzo when the cowboy casually spoke about Gibraltar. Genji had revealed that _he_ was in Gibraltar during their conversation the night before, of course, but the way first the cowboy, then the doctor spoke of it seemed to imply it was their main base of operations. It was strange that the cowboy would abandon his careful avoidance of even the smallest hint of Overwatch’s location so suddenly--it was as though Genji had informed him that there was no point in concealing it any longer.

 

Hours passed. Ms. Oxton joined the duo at the rec table for long stretches of time, talking and laughing with them about myriad subjects before occasionally returning to the cockpit to check the transport’s status, though it seemed fairly unnecessary with Athena acting as autopilot. The first two or three times she came down she called over to Hanzo, asking what he was doing. He gave some vague answer each time; he was having difficulty finding anything engaging enough to absorb him and was switching from book to book and movie to movie.

 

After a while he could feel the lack of sleep begin to creep up on him. It was brought to the forefront of his mind when he noticed that both the doctor and the cowboy were napping, the doctor cradling her head with her arms on the table, the cowboy leaning back with the wide brim of his hat hiding his face. He checked the time and shook his head when he saw it had been twenty-seven hours since he woke.

 

He stood and discreetly stretched a little and headed up the stairs. A little activity would help stave off the sleepiness. He had stimulants secreted away in the cello case, but they were fairly powerful and thus a last resort--he greatly preferred coffee or tea to help stay alert. There was a coffee machine installed in the shelves behind the rec table, but the cowboy was sitting almost in front of it--even if Hanzo were disposed to try to work around him without startling him, the smell would surely wake him, and while Hanzo had gone longer without assistance of some kind before, he had little reason not to accept some now if he could find it.

 

When he reached the next floor, he saw to his surprise that he had indeed missed an alcove that wrapped behind the stairs to the cockpit. Out of curiosity he began to wander around it, peering in muted surprise at the oddly placed yet huge status monitors placed there that showed schematics of the transport.

 

He was brought up short by the huge slumbering figure of Soldier: 76. He was stretched out on the floor, wrapped up in an army green sleeping bag, with a large duffel bag by his head.

 

Hanzo could only see the back of his head, but it was clear that the man was not wearing his visor.

 

He paused in midstep. He considered his options carefully, wondering if it would serve any advantage to try to catch a glimpse of 76’s face--but he found none. If anything, it would be a huge blunder, since 76 was, thus far, the agent who seemed the least opposed to Hanzo’s presence. He slowly backed away, watching 76 for any sign of his waking, but he disappeared from view without so much as twitching. Hanzo turned, rubbing his face as he made to go back downstairs. If the upper level was apparently off-limits for walking, he might break into his stimulants after all.

 

He had only gone a few steps when he heard a choked off half-snort come from the cockpit and Ms. Oxton was suddenly at his side.

 

“Hanzo! Did you--you didn’t see--did you?!” she stage-whispered frantically as the blue glow faded, glancing between him and the alcove.

 

“I did n--”

 

“Shhh! Not here! Come on!” she grabbed his arm, making him start a little, but she held on tight as she hurried him down the stairs, across the main deck, and up the stairs opposite. It was a small space with two more hatches on either side of the transport, but Hanzo was distracted by how agitated Ms. Oxton was acting. She looked behind them as she pulled them toward a corner before she looked him straight in the eye and whispered, “Quiet now! Did you see--did you see who he is?”

 

“No,” he said, hoping that simplicity would be his ally.

 

It was not. She narrowed her eyes and released his arm to poke his chest with a thin finger. “Now listen here, Shimada,” she hissed. “I don’t have time for any games, so I’ll lay it out plain and simple: if you tell anyone, anyone at all, who that man is, I swear I’ll-”

 

“Lena? Shimada?”

 

Lena whipped around. “Jesse! Did we wake you up? I’m sorry, I was just telling Shimada here--”

 

“Shimada, huh? What happened to Hanzo?” the cowboy interrupted, walking up the stairs slowly, dragging a hand through his ruffled hair.

 

Ms. Oxton bit off a curse under her breath before she forced the most plastic smile Hanzo had ever seen and said, “It’s nothing, Jess. Hanzo here almost, um, almost pulled an emergency lever and popped off one of the emergency hatches! Can’t have that at 10,000 metres, you know?”

 

The cowboy leveled her with a thoroughly unimpressed look just long enough for her to start fidgeting before he sighed and said, “So he saw Morrison, then?”

 

“Jesse!” Lena groaned, covering her face with her hands.

 

Hanzo, on the other hand, could only raised an eyebrow. “John Morrison? The Strike Commander?” he asked skeptically. The cowboy nodded his head tiredly. Hanzo stared at him for a few seconds before shaking his. “Impossible. They gave him a funeral with full honors, did they not? With one of your open caskets, on display to thousands of people, broadcast to billions more.” Hanzo had been in Incheon when the central headquarters of Overwatch were attacked, hunting down a kidnapped heir to some fortune. The entire country had slowed to a standstill the day it happened, since Overwatch had been the country’s most visible line of defense against the giant Omnic that periodically ravaged its coastline. The entire country had stood still a few days later as well, for the funerals. “Who were they mourning, if he was not John Morrison?”

 

“So--so you _didn’t_ see him?!”

 

“I dunno how Jack pulled that off,” the cowboy admitted as Ms. Oxton sputtered. “In Blackwatch we faked bodies every once in a while, but they were just printed mannequins more than anythin’.” He stopped for a moment with a considering look. “One time we even put a printed mask on a dead man when we needed a really convincin’ body for somethin’.” Hanzo could barely disguise his revulsion as the cowboy went on. “But none of that’d hold up t’even the most basic autopsy. It’d take a blind coroner with a head cold and bootleg prosthetics t’miss that, so what’d they bury in Arlington? Dunno, cuz Jack Morrison is alive and well and sleepin’--where’s that bastard sleepin’, Lena? In the ASMS?”

 

“McCree,” said Ms. Oxton with cold anger. “That is Commander Morrison!”

 

“That’s Morrison, sure, but he ain’ no commander. Not anymore.”

 

Ms. Oxton glared at the cowboy for a few seconds before waving a hand at Hanzo. “What about him? What do we do now that he knows?”

 

“Nothin’,” said the cowboy calmly.

 

“Nothing?! McCree, he could sell the commander out to _anyone_ \--”

 

The cowboy rolled his eyes expressively. “He could sell any of us out to anyone. If he’s gonna sell out anyone, _I’m_ the one he should be baggin’. Hasn’ done it yet. Hasn’ even tried. I should know, I’ve been trackin’ him down t’the meter for almost two months now.”

 

“Just because he hasn’t doesn’t mean he won’t,” Ms. Oxton retorted.

 

“‘Course not. That’s why we’re keepin’ a close eye on him, me, Winston, and Genji.”

 

A muscle in Ms. Oxton’s jaw worked as she stared daggers at the cowboy, who returned her look mildly. Finally she spun in place and poked Hanzo’s chest again. “I’ve got my eye on you, Shimada,” she declared. “No funny business, you hear me? You were already on thin ice, but if I get the slightest hint that you’re about to tell anyone about Commander Morrison?” In a motion too fast to see, the finger prodding his chest was leveled straight at his forehead, thumb cocked like a pistol. “You understand me?”

 

“Completely,” he stated calmly. She narrowed her eyes at his tone, but when she made to move away he added, “However, may I suggest something?”

 

“And what’s that?” she asked with distaste.

 

He looked her square in the eye. “Athena? Was I ever in a position to see Soldier: 76’s face?”

 

The AI chimed. “Negative, Mr. Shimada.”

 

“Thank you.” And, nodding at Ms. Oxton, he brushed past the cowboy, descended the stairs, and headed straight for the coffee machine. It was now twenty-eight hours since he had slept, and he needed coffee desperately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tadaaaaa!
> 
> I'm a little nervous about Tracer--rest assured that I think she's great, but I just feel that she's almost the anti-Blackwatch agent: way too open and jumps to conclusions a little too quickly. She's great, I love her.
> 
> And I really, really, REALLY wanted to get to Zenyatta, but it--it just wasn't happening. Another reason to get the next chapter out sooner rather than later, because Zen's got things to say and do.
> 
> This chapter is late, much later than I wanted--my personal goal is update at least once a month, but I missed the mark on this one. 
> 
> And I apologize for not replying to your wonderful, kind, thoughtful comments until just before I updated. They are overwhelming, and I treasure them, and I _will_ reply to them in a timely fashion from now on. Thank you for your kindness!
> 
> AND--EVEN BEFORE THIS CHAPTER WAS HALF-WRITTEN--[Motetus](http://motetus.tumblr.com/) saw the excerpts I posted on my Tumblr and [drew this beautiful piece of Hanzo ogling Jack--to poor Jesse's dismay.](http://motetus.tumblr.com/post/162606528624/i-had-an-uncontrollable-urge-to-draw-my) It is--super nice to be dropping Hanzo's gayness in, at long last. Expect more.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate it!


	10. Byans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes descriptions of a panic attack, dissociation, and dysphoria. Please take that under advisement!

It did not take long to figure out the coffee machine. It was just as well. Hanzo was keen to mask the quiet, almost growling voices of both the cowboy and Ms. Oxton--perhaps she had already gone back to being Agent Tracer--with the dripping, splattering noises of liquid filtering through the prepackaged grounds and into one of the blessedly oversized mugs he found at the ready nearby. If nothing else, it seemed he and Overwatch could agree when it came to serving sizes.

 

He glanced at the doctor, still resting her head on the table, when the invigorating, stronger-than-expected smell hit his nostrils. He had hoped to immediately start another cup brewing while he nursed at the first, but whatever this blend was, it was pungent. He would be better off whisking it to the other side of the room as soon as possible to keep from waking her.

 

Just as the machine gave a soft _ping_ and the jet black flow sputtered to a stop, a blue flash announced that Agent Tracer, at least, had finished speaking with the cowboy. Hanzo turned, mug in hand, just in time to see a streaming afterimage fade from sight as it trailed up the stairs to the cockpit. Hanzo allowed himself a small eyeroll as he moved away from the rec table, a trail of steam buffeting off his chest as he went.

 

It was not good practice to antagonize Genji’s comrades, but there was only so much Hanzo could endure when a simple solution was in plain sight.

 

He crossed to the jumpseats that were kittycorner from the rec table, putting as much space as possible between himself and the slumbering doctor. He sat and balanced the comm on his thigh as he blew on the coffee and took tiny sips despite its scalding temperature. The sooner the caffeine was in his system, the better.

 

After a while, as he disinterestedly scanned the lines of a scientific journal he had found in the OrcaVision app, he heard the spurs of the cowboy descend the stairs at last. He did not look up. His hackles were still raised from the exchange with Agent Tracer, and until he felt more alert and sure of his self-control he was in no mood to interact with the cowboy or even to puzzle out his strange intervention--

 

\--even so, his mind ground on.

 

Even if Agent Tracer had jumped to the conclusion that he had discovered Soldier: 76’s identity, she _had_ been hedging her bets enough not to explicitly name the man as she threatened Hanzo. There had not even been any indication that she was going to blurt out the name accidentally. The cowboy apparently had no such pretenses, which was--more than odd. It was counter to nearly every behavior the cowboy had exhibited. No unnecessary information had passed the cowboy’s lips from the moment Hanzo had met him, from the first stun grenade to the endless days under his unforgiving supervision to--

 

\--to their conversation under the cedars.

 

Since then, there had been a lot of unnecessary information, and words, and gestures.

 

The spurs came closer. The cowboy’s goal soon became obvious: the spurs stopped jingling just off to his left. Hanzo refused to look up. He was not sure if there would ever be a right time to test the hypothesis that had sprung up in his mind, but it was certainly not now, sleep-deprived with caffeine still in the pipeline. But the cowboy had other ideas.

 

“She’ll probably come apologize before too long.”

 

Hanzo suppressed a snort. “I am not here to collect apologies.”

 

“Maybe not, but she owes you one regardless.”

 

“She does not owe one to anyone. She is right to be suspicious _and_ she was not the one who broke confidence.” He looked up then. The cowboy wore a mixed expression, tired and solemn, but with the ghost of a smile. He sighed and turned to sit heavily at Hanzo’s side, not even leaving a buffer seat between them.

 

He said nothing for a long time. Hanzo waited, motionless, before he turned away with a small huff. He was about to rise and leave the cowboy to waste only his own time when he spoke at last.

 

“He never asked me t’keep his secrets.” Hanzo sat back, without looking at him. “I dunno if he thinks he’s bein’ slick or if he just don’ care or what, but beyond askin’ people not t’look, he’s said nothin’.” The cowboy chuckled darkly. “If he thinks he’s slick, he’s an idiot. Angie knows.” He nodded at the doctor across the room. “She knew when I did. We both went on missions Morrison led in person, back when he was the SC. Weren’ many of ‘em--delegation and all that--but we’re some of the few who saw him in action outside the Crisis, and he was a showoff then and he’s a showoff now. We both knew, instantly. Haven’ said a word about it, ‘course, but we just had t’look at each other. So I haven’ broken anyone’s confidence. I just have eyes.”

 

The cowboy rubbed his chin for a moment with his metal hand. This close, Hanzo could hear the wiry bristles of his beard catching in the joints of the prosthesis. “I’d guess the old guard knows. Lena does, obviously. I can’ imagine Winston not knowin’. Helps explain why he’s allowin’ him t’command missions.” No small amount of bitterness was in the cowboy’s voice. Hanzo’s eyebrow twitched, but before he could decide whether to comment on or question the old soldier’s place in the new Overwatch’s hierarchy, the cowboy continued. “I dunno about Genji. I don’ think he ever went on a mission with him, and back then he didn’ really care t’get t’know anyone anyhow. Always hung back, faded into the background. Dunno if he would know Morrison like I did.”

 

The caffeine did not arrive quickly enough.

 

“Hung back? What do you mean?”

 

The cowboy turned his head to find Hanzo’s eyes boring into him, his brow furrowed with confusion. He seemed almost taken aback, enough to hesitate briefly before replying. “Well, uh--he didn’ interact with anyone if he could help it, y’know? Didn’ speak unless spoken to, and sometimes not even then. Like--” he waved his hand towards the cockpit. “--that story Lena was tellin’? Genji was on that mission. She doesn’ remember if she ever even _saw_ him, which doesn’ surprise me. He would just sit in the darkest corner and just, uh. Y’know. Sit. Get lost in his own head.”

 

Shimada Genji hanging back, fading into the background, sitting in a dark corner?

 

That--that was an alien idea.

 

Genji had had the lion’s share of natural charm and charisma in their family, but more than that, he had been _social._ He was the type of person who walked into a roomful of strangers and walked out with twenty new contacts in his phone, the kind who could not walk down the street without getting stopped for a chat every five meters. Both his mother and the elders had bemoaned his lack of engagement in clan business for that very reason--Genji would have been a marvellous recruiter, a skilled negotiator, and a near-perfect public face for the clan if he had been at all dutiful, more than making up for Hanzo’s deficiencies in those fields. Ironically enough, his mother had even warned Hanzo to watch for signs of a betrayal. For a short time she insinuated that Genji might become a serious threat if he used his popularity to sway the clan’s loyalties to himself, before he gave up all pretense of ambition under the influence and protection of his father.

 

It was why it had been something of a relief to hear Agent Tracer’s account of the general character of Blackwatch personnel--it seemed like the perfect environment for Genji. How could it not be? He was an approachable, witty, handsome--

 

\--disfigured--

 

\--masked--

 

\--cyborg.

 

Literally torn to pieces. Encased in a metal carapace. Insulated and isolated from the outside world.

 

Come to think of it--how much of him--how little of him was there to isolate? What, exactly, had the doctor saved from the battle ten years ago? Hanzo remembered--Hanzo knew how little it could have been, must have been. How much of Genji had been left to face the world alone, murdered and abandoned by his family?

 

The silvery silhouette his brother had become flashed through his mind, his mind’s eye searching the memory for clues in the armored joints, the lights in the exoskeleton, the exposed tendons of artificial muscle, the expressionless mask that hid two distinct eyes surrounded by necrotic flesh.

 

Hanzo’s artificial feet twitched, suddenly feeling as foreign as they had those painful months as his body and mind had first adjusted to them. He shuddered to think of that feeling spreading up the stumps of his legs, through his torso and arms, filling him up.

 

What kind of life had Genji lived, torn out of his body and sealed into a machine?

 

One where he had withdrawn from crowds of those he formerly would have fashioned into droves of admirers, his greatest pleasure. If he could believe the cowboy.

 

And he could.

 

_Suffice to say, he saved my life just as Dr. Ziegler did. He saved my soul._

 

Why had Hanzo only _now_ realized?

 

It had been _months._

 

_Months._

 

It was the pain in his hand that first brought him back through the fuzz and static that engulfed his mind, that alerted him to the fuzz and static in the first place. The cowboy had been speaking with a guarded expression, then there were distinct moments that seemed like mere moments and drawn out hours at once--images of the cowboy, then the room sliding out of focus, everything doubling as his eyes crossed--and that was far too much like his moment of weakness during the raid, with the dragons, and _that_ was far too much like the battle ten years ago.

 

Hanzo had not even _considered--_

 

But the pain in his hand brought him back. He blinked the room back into focus, instinctively raising his hand to examine it. Irregular red stripes across his fingers greeted him, shiny through the sheen of coffee that still clung and dripped from his skin.

 

Foolish.

 

“Hanzo?”

 

He opened his mouth, but his tongue refused to form words at first, and when he finally mastered it he could only produce a few syllables of Japanese. He snapped his mouth shut and scowled.

 

“Hanzo? Shit, hey! Ang--”

 

“Do not,” Hanzo rasped, in English this time. “She would not want to, and I am fine.” He tried to rise to his feet, his movements shaky and uncoordinated, but a hand touched his shoulder and he jerked back, losing his balance and falling back with a gasp when he landed awkwardly on the plastic separator of the jumpseat.

 

“Whoa! Hey--” the cowboy stepped in front of him, holding his hands out in full view. “Look, just--just stay still for a second, you gotta get your bearings--”

 

“Yes, thank you,” snapped Hanzo, feeling a disconcerting amount of sweat on his forehead. “I am fine. You may go.”

 

The cowboy hesitated, looking torn. “It ain’ right t’just--”

 

“You can resume this game later,” Hanzo bit out, shifting until he dropped fully into the jumpseat once more and leaned back and closed his eyes tightly. “For now, just cease and go!”

 

“This ain’ no game!” snapped the cowboy sharply. Hanzo’s eyes burst open, and at last he saw what he expected to see on the cowboy’s face: a deep scowl, eyes narrowed in anger. “Look, if it can’ be me, fine, but it’s gotta be someone when you’re--like this. So who do you want? Angie or Morr--76?”

 

“No one,” Hanzo hissed.

 

The cowboy rolled his eyes. “Angie it is then.” But he had only half-turned when Hanzo surged to his feet.

 

“Do _not._ I am _fine._ ” It took all he had to keep the tremors in his limbs from collapsing his legs out from under him or being too obvious in his hands.

 

The cowboy did not look convinced. He had reached out as Hanzo moved, to catch Hanzo if he fell or to shield himself or both. “Alright. Alright,” he muttered, flattening his lips into a straight line. “Let’s compromise, okay? I won’ wake up Angie, but if you don’ want me t’stay with you, then you gotta stick close by her in case you need her, okay? Just--just sit by her so if you keel over or whatever, she’ll be the first t’know. Okay? Hanzo?”

 

“ _Shimada,_ ” growled Hanzo, clenching his fists. “Do _not_ use my given name, cowboy.”

 

The cowboy opened his mouth to snap back, hesitated, then finally said, “ _Agent_ Shimada.” He shifted his feet uncomfortably at the open, baffled expression that Hanzo could not keep from flitting across his face. “Agent Shimada. Now, come on. Do we got a deal or not?”

 

Hanzo ground his teeth for a moment before giving a curt nod. He walked as steadily as he could, which was not terribly steady at all, over to the rec table, sitting on the edge of the loveseat, just below the coffee machine and around the corner from the still-slumbering doctor, as far from her as possible.

 

“Yeah, naw, that won’ do,” chided the cowboy, following just behind. “Scoot in a little, just so if you--just so if we hit some turbulence, you don’ get thrown out on your ass on the floor.” Hanzo huffed, but complied, hoping it would encourage the cowboy to be gone. The cowboy nodded his satisfaction when Hanzo moved far enough. “Alright. Now, as you reminded Lena just now, Athena’s keepin’ watch, so if you need anything, just holler, at her or at Angie, okay?” Another curt nod from Hanzo and the cowboy took in and let out a deep breath, turned on his heel, and almost stalked away, up the stairs to the next level.

 

Hanzo watched him go, fully intending to move back across the room as soon as he was out of sight, but to his immense displeasure, the cowboy made a big show of sitting down at a workstation below an enormous screen off to the side of the stairs, facing away but only needing to turn around to keep eyes on Hanzo. He fought down a frustrated growl as he leaned back and thudded his head against the shelf behind him, staring at the bulkhead high above.

 

His frustration only increased when he realized they had both left the comm behind. He could see it on the floor, close to the upside down coffee mug lying in the middle of a dark brown pool. He focused on it, willing the tremors in his limbs to settle so he could stand and retrieve it, but they only strengthened now that no one was looking.

 

But the doctor was close by.

 

She would know. She must know everything that Hanzo did not have the consideration to think of for months.

 

It was easy now, childishly easy, to imagine the horror of Genji’s life in the days, months, and years after Hanzo had destroyed him, condemned to live in what surely amounted to a full-body prosthesis. How foreign had it felt, to be so completely artificial? To have to relearn how to move his fingers, toes, arms, legs-- _everything_ \--a task that had cost Hanzo months of intense concentration and flaring pain, and all for a mere pair of feet? How long did it take for Genji to take a step? Had there been enough of him left to feel the pain of his bones and muscles readjusting? Had there been any bones and muscle at _all?_

 

What did Genji do when the phantom pain first came?

 

What did he do _now_ when it came?

 

It was incredible how much Hanzo had simplified his crime. He had been so focused on what he had _thought_ it was, what he _believed_ he had done, and on what Genji’s reaction should be to _that_ , that he had completely overlooked the actual magnitude of his victim’s suffering.

 

It was increasingly difficult to understand how Genji could come to Hanamura Castle only to sheathe his sword. Hanzo would not have done the same. He would have _rent_ and _cut_ and _shredded._

 

But--

 

\--he had already proven that, had he not?

 

It was hard to say how quickly or slowly time passed, but at the very least he was kept present by the pulsing pain of the burn on his hand. He flexed his fingers if he felt himself drifting too much, stretching and creasing the tight red skin to center himself. The tremors calmed after an indeterminate period, but at that point Hanzo was beyond wishing for distraction.

 

More than anything he wanted sake. His eyes kept flicking to the shelf holding his cello case, but he made no move. Shame and rage thrummed through his limbs, begging for release, but it was not the time nor the place, and not knowing when it _would_ be the time and place was almost the worst part of this wretched experience. Sometime after he made it to India, he hoped, but he could not suffocate his doubts that he would be secure enough, safe enough to vent the pressure.

 

He felt a strange mixture of annoyance and relief when Agent Tracer’s voice echoed through the transport.

 

“Good evening, esteemed passengers! We will be arriving in Byans in approximately fifteen minutes. Cabin crew, please prepare for arrival!” Hanzo was swiftly on his feet and striding across the room before the doctor could do anything more than stir, forcing his turbulent emotions down into a swirling pool in the pit of his stomach. It did not require as much control as the night of the raid, nor did it threaten to burst forth, but it was there and in need of careful monitoring.

He stooped to pick up the miraculously still-dry comm off the floor. He frowned at the puddle of coffee as he clipped it to his belt, trying to remember if he had seen anything to mop it up with anywhere in the transport.

 

“ _Ach je!_ ” said the doctor behind him, her voice thick with slumber. “Did you have an accident, Mr. Shimada? Or did Jesse or Lena leave that behind?”

 

“I did,” he replied without turning, pleased that he was managing a neutral if not a normal tone. The anger and shame settled somewhat, simmering in his gut. “Where are the cleaning supplies kept?”

 

She cleared her throat. “Oh, I think Winston and Torbjörn got the cleaning bots going before we left,” she said with a more normal sounding, though sleepy voice. He could hear her shift to the end of the loveseat and stand. “I believe they wait until landing to clean, though. I don’t remember exactly why.”

 

“Yeah, that’s right. Somethin’ t’do with the air circulation. Somethin’ like.” The cowboy’s boots clattered on the steps as he came down, letting his arms swing carelessly as he went. “Doin’ alright there, Angie? Agent Shimada?” The doctor hummed a vague affirmative as she went to the coffee machine, so she hopefully missed the meaningful look the cowboy fixed on Hanzo. Hanzo did not deign to reply in any way; he merely scooped up the empty mug as well and sat in a jumpseat, one down from the puddle. The doctor had sat there before, but he would not obligate her to sit amidst his mess, especially since it was likely to slosh around as Agent Tracer positioned the transport for landing. He could wipe off his prosthetics easier than she could her shoes.

 

“Would you like another, Mr. Shimada? To replace it?” called the doctor over her shoulder. Her ponytail had come partially undone as she slept, and several locks of her voluminous hair were trailing down the back of her labcoat.

 

“No, thank you, Dr. Ziegler,” he said, closing his eyes and trying not to throw his head back to thud against the wall once more. “I should not tempt fate.” He tried to distract himself by rubbing at the wet spots on the mug, trying to spread and dry the liquid so it would not drip on his clothes.

 

“I’ll get that for ya,” said the cowboy. Hanzo’s eyes popped open, and he leveled a look at the cowboy. He was still standing some distance away, however, one hand outstretched but waiting to close the distance. Hanzo narrowed his eyes slightly--but he did hold out the mug. The cowboy took it from him with quick movements, retreating as soon as he could. “Lemme grab some toilet paper t’mop some of that up before we land.”

 

Hanzo was on his feet instantly. “No need,” he said as the doctor muttered, “Oh, yes, of course, there’s toilet paper, isn’t there?”

 

He looked up the stairs towards the cockpit with a slight scowl. “Is it--?” he asked quietly, loathing the awkward question that was all the more awkward for being asked _now,_ after everything that had happened.

 

The cowboy blinked. “Didn’ we tell--uh, back there, either side of the stairs,” he said, nodding towards the rear of the plane where Agent Tracer had dragged Hanzo for their confrontation. “Sorry,” he added quickly, averting his gaze. “Hope you weren’, uh--”

 

“No,” Hanzo said decisively, cutting off any further words by marching up the stairs.

 

The WC was a tiny room by the rear hatch that could barely contain its contents. Hanzo gathered several neatly folded, thick pieces of toilet paper as quickly as he could before going back and dropping several on the puddle, keeping two in reserve as he moved the toilet paper around with his feet before leaving it to absorb what it could. He fetched his toiletries bag out of his cello case and tucked it under his arm before he gathered the sodden mass off the floor between the two last dry pieces in his hands in as orderly a bundle as possible. He desperately hoped as he returned to the WC that he would not clog the appliance and have to ask for help. To his relief, the dripping tissue disappeared without issue. Hanzo sighed as he washed his hands in the minuscule washbasin provided, letting the lukewarm water soothe his burn a little now that he had other things to focus on.

 

Like his brother’s mentor. His brother’s _master,_ whatever that meant. The one who had made all this possible, he thought bitterly as he looked at his own scowling face in the small mirror above the washbasin and resisted the urge to pound a closed fist on the wall like a child.

 

Nevertheless, there were appearances to preserve, and respect to be shown.

 

He had been right to shave just before leaving the safehouse, despite this unexpected opportunity to fix himself up. There was only a bare minimum of stubble softening the lines of his beard and goatee, and he took care of it swiftly. He fished a hair elastic out of the bag, gathered his hair from the short bob that framed his jawline and put it up in his usual high ponytail. He turned his head this way and that to look for any stray strands before running his damp hands over his clothes to smooth out as many wrinkles as possible. He snorted as he examined the just-visible bags under his eyes, thinking back to the cowboy’s questions earlier at the safehouse. Permanent makeup could hide much, but not everything.

 

He gave a short sigh when he was satisfied that there was nothing else to do except wait to land and meet the Omnic monk.

 

He reluctantly returned down the stairs. He frowned to see the doctor sitting next to the outline of the puddle, but she did not seem to be the least bit bothered by it, if her alternating concentration between her comm and her coffee was any indication. Her focus on each was intense. She glanced up at him with a strained smile as he put the bag away.

 

“Oh,” she said, blinking at him. “Yes, it’d be a good idea to be presentable.” Her ponytail was still partially undone. She tried to set her comm and the coffee off to one side, but the plastic separator in the jumpseat made the space awkward and her mug threatened to topple. “ _Scheisse,_ ” she swore.

 

The cowboy was nowhere to be seen, so there was no unobjectionable help available. He strode forward. “Please, doctor,” he offered, holding out a hand.

 

She thrust the mug into his hand a bit clumsily. “Oh! Sorry,” she said as she hurriedly undid her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders. “I’m next to useless just after waking up. Not the best quality in a medic, I know.” Her tone was strangely apologetic, almost embarrassed.

 

This was the doctor who snatched Genji away from the brink of death. Her self-deprecation was not appropriate. “No, but I am sure your patients are thankful to have you nonetheless.”

 

Her fingers paused for an instant before she quickly finished putting her hair up again. With a small thank you, she accepted her coffee back, but before he could move away, she looked him in the eye, blinked, and said, “Oh! I still must make up your vaccination certificate. What alias did Jesse give you? I’ll need its passport or visa number.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips as he felt his stomach roil at the prospect of giving out such sensitive information, but he had no choice. He jerked a small nod and went back to the shelving to retrieve the passport for the alias he had selected. The doctor thanked him again as he handed it to her, and he retreated to his jumpseat before he could betray any more of his discomfort.

 

He sat just as Agent Tracer came on the PA. “Esteemed passengers, we are now coming in for a landing! Please return to your seats as-- _bong!_ \--the captain has once more lit the fasten your seatbelts sign!”

 

The cowboy rushed down the steps to strap himself in, but he visibly hesitated for a brief moment before once more choosing to sit by Hanzo, with a buffer seat this time. As soon as Agent Tracer finished her monologue, he spoke loud enough to be heard by the doctor across the way. “Since I’m the, uh, _ranking member,_ ” he said, rolling his eyes at her--Hanzo did not miss her glance at him--“it falls t’me t’lead the welcoming committee. I dunno if you guys were plannin’ on bundlin’ up, but I’ll keep it short and sweet since it’s freezing down there. Zenyatta says he’s got pretty much all he needs in a couple of cases, so we won’ even have t’break open the cargo hatch.

 

“He’ll be meetin’ us at the landing site. I’ve been _told_ that it’d be most polite for us all t’go out as a group t’meet him, introduce ourselves and exchange pleasantries and all, then we’ll troop on back inside and go. Just remember that ‘round here the proper greeting is a _namaste._ Sound good?” He looked from the doctor to Hanzo and back again.

 

“Roger!” said the doctor before taking a hurried gulp from her mug as the transport banked alarmingly.

 

“Understood,” said Hanzo, leaning back as his stomach tried to lurch under the leaden weight of his self-directed anger and mounting anxiety.

 

It took far less time than he anticipated before the transport leveled out and Agent Tracer announced “We have arrived in Byans, Nepal! The time is now 7:33PM, and the temperature is currently -1°C! The forecast--” Hanzo tuned the rest out, his eyes on the hatch.

 

It was dark through the window, but as the dim red of the landing lights allowed his eyes to adjust, he could discern the shapes of slanted rooftops, patchy with snow that glowed blue in the moonlight. They seemed to have landed close to a small square or plaza of some kind rather than an airstrip or airport. The nearest buildings were clustered only a dozen or so meters away.

 

His eyes soon found two humanoid figures walking towards the transport. The blue light glinting on their foreheads was clearly artificial rather than moonlight.

 

The hatch hissed open, but this time a golden sheen immediately bubbled over the wide entrance. A climate control forcefield to keep the heat in, he supposed. Whatever it was, it was not enough to prevent a whoosh of air as the air pressure equalized with the apparently high altitude--the sudden bulging pressure on his eardrums was painful enough to make him stiffen, and he had to suppress yet another surge of annoyance as he tensed the back of his throat to pop his ears.

 

“Goddamn,” muttered the cowboy. Out of the corner of his eye, Hanzo could see him pressing his flesh hand to one ear as he pinched his nose with his metal one.

 

“Oh, yeah!” Agent Tracer had appeared, standing at the foot of the stairs and looking at the cowboy with an apologetic grin. “We remind our esteemed passengers that we are currently at an altitude of 4,600 metres. Please be aware of any signs of altitude sickness such as fatigue, nosebleeds, and nausea. If you experience--”

 

“--headache, chest pains, vomiting, shortness of breath, or fever,” interrupted the doctor as she unlocked her restraint and stood, “come to me immediately.”

 

“Won’ have the chance t’happen,” promised the cowboy as he rose as well. “Where’s--oh.” Soldier: 76 appeared on the steps, descending unhurriedly, visor on and fully dressed in his black combat pants and jacket and gloves. “Alright, let’s get a-goin’.”

 

Hanzo hung back as the cowboy took the lead. The doctor and Agent Tracer followed close behind, but Agent Tracer did pause as she passed Hanzo. She opened her mouth but apparently thought better of saying something, glancing at 76 before awkwardly nodding at Hanzo instead as she ducked her head and nearly tread on the cowboy’s jingling spurs. He did not bother to reciprocate.

 

He drew even with 76 as they brought up the rear of their little party. Soldier: 76 did not greet Hanzo with anything other than a slight nod; he moved stiffly, visor looking straight ahead as far as he could tell. As the party passed through the forcefield his head made small scanning movements as he appraised their surroundings. Hanzo only noticed them because he was doing the same.

 

His eyes widened even as they watered from the abrupt twenty degree drop in temperature and the stiff breeze.

 

Off to his right, there was nothing but open air that descended in unbroken, dizzying emptiness to a bank of silver and grey clouds, puffy and curling in a way he was used to seeing only in mid-flight.

 

His thoughts immediately centered on the first time he had summited Mount Fuji as a teenager. That had been a fairly clear day, but a fog bank had hugged the young forests that had been replanted around the foot of the ancient volcano to replace those lost in the Crisis. Back then even from so high up he could see the spindly treetops poking through the fog, diminishing the scale of it. Here, the immense distance to the clouds below was only reinforced by what were clearly mammoth, beautifully rugged mountains on the other side of a steep glacial valley. They looked like they were on the other side of a frothy, stormwracked yet oddly motionless sea.

 

This village was obviously a tiny dot on the monumental stage of nature. It would have been breathtaking if he were in a state of mind to appreciate it.

 

There were several banners placed around the small plaza, waving in the unnervingly synced and mesmerizing manner of flags in a steady wind. The facades of the buildings were a mix of exposed woodframe, shuttered windows and uncovered stairs over plaster walls that were various colors impossible to determine in the low light. There was no sign of life besides the two figures now approaching side-by-side, each carrying what seemed to be largish wooden chests. The only artificial illumination visible, besides that from the figures themselves, was a soft yellow-orange light spilling from the open entrance of the building the figures seemed to have been waiting in.

 

Their party paused just beyond the foot of the ramp. The two figures stopped as they each placed their burden on the ground.

 

“T-Tekhartha Zenyatta?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips at the slight shiver in the cowboy’s voice. Did he chill so easily, even with his cape? It _was_ whipping around in the wind, though. It could hardly protect its wearer that way. Hanzo’s main concern with the wind, on the other hand, was its tugging at his short ponytail--he had always been warmblooded. He distantly noted, however, that the cowboy must be utilizing hairclips or hatpins of some kind; the brim of his hat flapped in the wind, but it clung stubbornly to his head.

 

One of the figures stepped forward, but both raised and pressed their palms together in _namaste._ “Yes, I am Tekhartha Zenyatta. This is Ani Choying Drolma, one of the sisters from the monastery. Peace and blessings be upon you all.”

 

“ _Namaskar._ We are honored to meet you.” The cowboy’s arms moved. Hanzo took it as a sign to return the _namaste_ even if he could not see his hands. 76 did the same at his side. “I am Jesse McCree.” He moved to one side to gesture at each of them in turn. “Lena Oxton, Angela Ziegler--” he paused for a brief second. Hanzo felt his lips try to move into a grimace. “--Soldier: 76, and Shimada Hanzo.”

 

Now that the cowboy had moved, Hanzo could see the Omnic monk unimpeded.

 

He would never admit it, but the physical appearances of Omnics tended to fascinate him. He had been taught from an early age that a crisp, well-maintained look could take him far whether he was entering a boardroom or a bedroom. It did not matter who the occupants were; sharp eyebrows and a sharper jawline nearly always pressed an advantage of some sort.

 

Omnics could go pretty far when it came to body modification, so it was usually more interesting picking apart the implications of their appearances than it was for humans. The motivations were not always deep, of course--the _oni_ -masked Omnic guard that Hanzo faced annually at Shimada Castle sprang to mind--but Omnic spirituality was new enough that many still were not convinced that it even existed, and the Omnics standing before them now seemed dressed to convince all who saw them that Omnic spirituality was not only real, but doing _very_ well for itself.

 

There was the cursory attempt to affect an abstinent, austere air. Both Omnics were dressed in thin slacks (Tekhartha Zenyatta’s even ended in tatters around his ankles) that billowed and snapped in the wind, revealing the outline of their skeletal legs. Cloths that were evidently meant to hang in a semblance of long loincloths fluttered like pennants from their waists, where thick, corded belts sat more on the slacks than on their slim frames. Their metallic chests and arms were bare to the air, with thin sheens of condensation forming and evaporating in the dry air on their windward sides.

 

And, to complete the picture of simple ascetics, each Omnic’s faceplate was standard issue, minimal slitted eyes and nutcracker-like mouths with zero articulation, the face that the vast majority of Omnics wore fresh out of the Omnium just before they were shipped off to join the ranks of the nextgen factories, mines, and farms that OmnicaCorp had promised would be the foundation of the post-scarcity economy.

 

Look closer, however--

 

The slacks, colored a light saffron, and the loincloths, a deep red, caught the moonlight with a shine that was either cheap nylon or finely woven silk, and Hanzo knew which his money was on. The belts themselves were constructed to seem rough and rope-like, almost like a ship’s rigging, but were covered in the same fine material the slacks were made of. Attached to the back of each belt was a cord that flapped in the wind. The Omnic nun’s was simply the cord. Tekhartha Zenyatta’s ended in a large bell-shaped tassel made of braided threads that snapped in the wind. And while the Omnic nun had the customary three blue lights on her faceplate, Tekhartha Zenyatta had nine arranged to mimic the _Jieba_. If that was not enough to indicate some status, his faceplate was two-toned, regular burnished aluminium above the jawline, polished golden brass below to match the brass orbs that gently floated around the piston-like apparatuses that made up his neck. They rotated slowly in place, revealing grooved circles on their surfaces that glowed with a gentle blue-white light.

 

Most impressive, if one was affected by that sort of theatrics. It was a modified but recognizable cut to a uniform Hanzo had seen most of the monks and nuns he had met wear, whether they tended to the great monument temples of Thailand or the small yet ornate shrine the Shimada had maintained, ostensibly to honor the dragons. A look meant to communicate a very specific set of messages to the viewer, to impress a contrasting image of self-denying piety and ethereal nobility.

 

In the end, though, Hanzo wished their presentation included more expressive eyes. Then, perhaps, he could better tell what the Omnic was thinking as he stepped forward to greet each member of their party in turn. His anxiety peaked as he made his way towards him.

 

“Agent McCree, Genji has told me much about you. I look forward to your barbecues.” The cowboy gave a short surprised laugh. “Dr. Ziegler. It is a sincere pleasure. You do beautiful work.” The doctor seemed at a loss of how to reply beyond a smile and a stammered thanks. “I believe--Genji insisted that I should save time and call you Tracer.”

 

Agent Tracer grinned widely. “That’s right! Pleased to meet you!” She really was. It was written all over her face in every way it had not been when she met Hanzo.

 

“Soldier: 76. Genji has told me of your expertise on the battlefield. I look forward to fighting alongside you.” 76 merely grunted in reply.

 

“Shimada Hanzo.” The Omnic’s voice had the characteristic Omnic overtone on a low tenor, and was, despite the absence of lungs or throat, rather breathy. Hanzo, despite the time he had to prepare and bolster himself, could not help but tense. Still, he did not expect the Omnic monk to step forward, drop his arms to his sides, and bow formally. “I have greatly anticipated your arrival. It is good to meet the family of one of my brightest pupils at last.”

 

The Omnic monk had switched to flawless Japanese, prompting the Overwatch agents around them to glance at one another. Hanzo fought a wave of annoyance. Why was the Omnic monk bothering to single Hanzo out this way?

 

Nevertheless, he smoothly returned the bow, though he struggled to find a satisfactory reply. “Shimada Genji speaks well of you,” he said, a little stumblingly as he briefly warred with himself about whether to reply in Japanese or English. He settled on following the Omnic monk’s lead.

 

The Omnic monk gave a short laugh, throwing his head back slightly to simulate the proper motion. “I’m honored that what few words have passed between you have managed to include me.” Hanzo’s eyes narrowed. The Omnic monk turned his head to the cowboy. “Agent McCree,” he said, switching back to English. “I am sure you are all anxious to continue your journey, but I wish to ask a favor. I did not arrive here until just a few minutes ago to meet Ani as she brought me gifts and supplies from my brothers and sisters. Is there time for me to walk around the village? I do not know when I will see it again.”

 

“Uh, sure,” the cowboy said slowly, to Hanzo’s despair. “We’re ahead of schedule. Doesn’t seem like there’s much to see around here, so I guess it won’t take too long?”

 

“No, not at all.” The Omnic monk turned back to Hanzo. “Would you accompany me, Shimada-san?”

 

Hanzo’s eyes widened slightly at the invitation. He almost blurted out a negative, but restrained himself. He had already assured Genji that he would treat the Omnic respectfully, and there was no reason to decline.

 

“Yes,” he said simply, and stepped forward.

 

Agent Tracer let slip an aborted, “In this cold--” before she cut herself off.

 

At nearly the same time, the cowboy said with a frown, “Hey, now, Agent Shimada. You got a jacket to put on?”

 

“Yes, you shouldn’t go around in nothing but a shirt,” the doctor said with an air of admonishment. She was already shivering violently.

 

Hanzo was startled by their reaction, furrowing his brow as he shook his head. “Only a rain poncho. I was not expecting this climate. But it does not matter, I can endure the cold easily.”

 

“Like hell,” said the cowboy bluntly. He tugged at the cape around his shoulders, pulling it off his left shoulder so that it looked more like a poncho than a cape. “Take this at least, or the cold will get t’ya before the altitude does.”

 

“Thank you, no,” said Hanzo hurriedly as the cowboy tipped his hat off into Agent Tracer’s surprised hands and started to pull the cape off and over his head. He _felt_ the cold, certainly, but this was nothing compared to the winters in Hokkaido. He had no need for an outer covering, and certainly not the cowboy’s _cape_. He quickly unbuttoned the cuff on his right arm and rolled back the sleeve, baring his skin. “You see? I am unaffected,” he affirmed, displaying the smooth skin, completely free of goosebumps. “I have always been warm, so long as I am dry.”

 

The cowboy tutted. “Still,” he implored as he held out the cape.

 

Hanzo sighed as he rolled his sleeve back down and nearly reached for the cape when the Omnic monk spoke up.

 

“It is a Shimada trait to be so impervious to the cold. Genji does not need a jacket either, unless there is a blizzard. Even then he will only wear something light. My brothers, sisters, and I fretted over him the first winter, but he lived through it with hardly any frostbite.”

 

The doctor fixed the Omnic monk with a flat look. The Omnic monk folded his hands together. “No frostbite at all, actually.”

 

“Yeah, he was like that back in Overwatch, too,” said the cowboy thoughtfully. He turned to the doctor. “Wasn’ that just because of his augmentation, though?”

 

Augmentation. _Augmentation._ Such a term for his prison.

 

“No, actually,” said the doctor with a thoughtful look on her face. “In fact, I had to reduce the size of the heaters I initially included in favor of an expanded coolant system to maintain his body temperature. He kept overheating. It never occurred to me it might be genetics,” she finished with a small smile.

 

“Huh.” The cowboy turned back to Hanzo. “Y--” he began, but he stopped with a brief considering look. “We’ll get Agent Zenyatta’s luggage inside,” he said instead. “You got your comm, so just let us know if y’all need anything.”

 

“Thank you. And please, it is just ‘Zenyatta’,” the Omnic monk said smoothly. He and the other Omnic picked up and handed the wooden chests to the cowboy and Agent Tracer. The other Omnic, Ani, clasped her palms together in a _namaste_ of farewell to the Overwatch agents as they returned to the transport, all but 76.

 

He waited until the others were all inside before he moved, unzipping his parka-like jacket, revealing solid black combat webbing underneath. Hanzo grimaced in dismay, which prompted something like a laugh from 76. “Take it with you,” he said gruffly, tossing his jacket at Hanzo, who caught it deftly out of instinct. “Wear it or don’t wear it, so long as you got it.” He turned and went back up the ramp and into the transport before Hanzo could object.

 

The Omnic monk hummed, a strangely musical sound with the Omnic overtone in his voice. “He is very sure of his benevolence, is he not?”

 

Hanzo did not reply. He merely folded the jacket over his right arm. He did not need it, but at least it was an improvement on the cowboy’s cape. 76 was a taller man, though, so the longer sleeves and torso would make Hanzo look childishly undersized in it were he to wear it.

 

He fell into step beside the Omnic monk. He and the Omnic nun led him up a wide, unpaved path on their left that climbed until it was level with the second stories of the buildings of the village. There they found a switchback that led further up the mountain, and there the Omnics paused.

 

They exchanged a few words, and they were indeed few; Omnic was almost universally described by linguists as “efficient”, whatever that meant. They exchanged _namaste_ as they spoke, and the Omnic monk walked a few steps away.

 

Instead of leaving, however, the Omnic nun turned to Hanzo and paused. He raised an eyebrow questioningly, but she did nothing but look as far as he could tell for a long while. As the silence went on, he had the sinking feeling she was scrutinizing him despite her immobile faceplate. Finally, she reached a hand behind her and shifted a pouch that hung off her belt into view before reaching inside and withdrawing a brass orb that looked virtually identical to the ones floating around the Omnic monk’s neck. The grooves glowed with the same muted light.

 

“A gift,” she said in a _sotto_ alto voice and in perfect Japanese, holding it out to him. “from the Shambali to the brother of one of our dearest friends.”

 

His whole body tensed, his hands clenching into fists tight enough for his knuckles to crack. He looked away from the too-bland face and the proffered orb. “No,” he bit out. “I cannot accept any gift from a friend of Genji. It would be--improper.” More than that, it was almost _offensive,_ really, for a so-called friend of Genji to offer anything to his murderer but censure.

 

The Omnic nun tilted her head slightly, as if considering. She released the orb to float in mid-air, rotating slowly in place. She cupped her bone-like metal fingers beneath it, and the blue-white light in the grooves brightened slightly. “A token, then. A token of goodwill for a visitor passing through our land,” she said at last.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “I cannot accept this.”

 

He felt a gentle touch on his left shoulder. He started, but he allowed the light pressure to turn him slightly to meet the impassive faceplate of the Omnic nun. There was another strong impression of scrutiny, and he felt the muscles of his jaw tighten still further.

 

“You need not accept this gift,” she said quietly. “You may never accept it. The future is not preordained, and you need not heed any wish of ours. But--” Her hand trailed down his arm, leaving uncomfortable tingles in its wake, before she took his hand and raised it to meet the floating orb, wrapping his fingers around it with her almost painfully chilled hands, the orb itself pleasantly warm in contrast. “--you need not accept this gift to take it with you.” Then she stepped back.

 

“I wish you a safe journey, Shimada Hanzo,” she said, pressing her palms together. “Both physical and spiritual.” Then, without waiting for a response, she set off up the path further up the mountain. He stepped after her, intent for a furious moment to chase her down and _make_ her take the orb back.

 

“Ani always was more compassionate than me. I would not have done the same.”

 

Hanzo froze in mid-step at the Omnic monk’s words. He turned. The Omnic monk was walking away, metallic hands clasped behind his back, oversized tassel swinging to and fro as he walked. Hanzo scowled as he glanced back at the retreating figure of the Omnic nun. She had already turned onto another switchback, and the steep path meant she was high above them. He could scurry straight up the mountain to cut her off, but his anger was making him breathe heavily, heavier than he should be, and he was reminded of the thin air at this altitude. He did not truly know what was worse: accepting an inappropriate gift from Genji’s benefactors or cracking his head open on some sharp stone if he fainted and fell while trying to return it.

 

He snarled silently and walked quickly to catch up with the Omnic monk. Both of those options were worse than being left behind when he had agreed to walk with him. If nothing else, perhaps his words meant he would be happy to take away the orb, misplaced as it was.

 

Once he was by the Omnic monk’s side, however, words died in his throat. He clutched the orb in his hand tighter, but he could barely stand to look at the Omnic monk, much less speak with him. The gift had stirred up everything that was so _wrong_ with these Omnic spiritualists somehow persuading Genji not to pursue his right, and _this_ Omnic bore the brunt of that responsibility.

 

It took all Hanzo had not to do or say something wildly impertinent, now that the Omnic monk was in arm’s reach. All he wanted to do was reach inside his chest cavity and yank out his main power conduit.

 

He stared straight ahead, trying to force his fury back, taking notice of the Omnic monk only when he slightly changed direction as they made their way through the village.

 

There was several structures on their left built on the slope above the village, towering over their neighbors though they were only a single story, but most of the village sat below them on a sort of shelf projecting from the mountainside. Most of the buildings had two stories, and a series of wide wooden platforms had been constructed to provide direct access from the path they now walked to their second floors. One large, long structure that stood taller than the rest was built into the slope itself--the town hall, perhaps. They had to pass through a wing that blocked their path, the Omnic monk politely opening each set of doors to allow Hanzo through. The wing itself was a storage room of some kind judging from the indistinct, vaguely drum-like shapes piled in the corners, but Hanzo did not pay them much attention.

 

On the other side was an enclosed plaza, or possibly a marketplace. Brick and stone walls connected the buildings that fronted it, and here, in the lee of the walls, there were several store fronts. The dirt path was replaced with flagstones. Heavy bell windchimes and banners that would have been brightly colored were they not lit by moonlight hung from several enclosed balconies. Most of them were in sheltered places, but a few were directly exposed to the wind, but they were silent. The steady, stiff wind pressed their clappers to one side, effectively muting them.

 

The Omnic monk turned here and crossed a platform that led to an otherwise isolated short, squat, stone tower. A chest-high parapet surrounded an open cupola closed off by wooden screens, allowing access only alongside the parapet. Over the parapet Hanzo could see an adequate overview of the marketplace, including what seemed to be the main entrance into the village through a gateway in the stone wall opposite the town hall.

 

On the side of the tower opposite from the platform they had crossed was another short bridge to a building virtually identical to every other surrounding the square. It ended at a pair of heavy wooden doors, shut fast against the chill and the wind that managed to scoop down into the plaza.

 

The Omnic monk seemed content now to simply circle the cupola as they walked side-by-side, his head turned to observe the view over the parapet. Two or three viewings were sufficient for Hanzo, but the Omnic monk gave no sign of stopping or moving on; he simply walked on, so Hanzo turned his attention inward.

 

His thoughts immediately centered on Genji once more. His anger and shame rose and fell in turns as images of Genji as he was and Genji as he was now passed before his mind’s eye. So close to the Omnic monk, he could apparently do little else, no matter how he tried to turn his thoughts to other matters or even shut them out completely in a form of walking meditation, as he rather suspected the Omnic monk of doing as the silence drew on.

 

And it really was silent, beyond the steady wail of the wind and the occasional tinkle of a windchime. There was no sign of life besides Hanzo and--he supposed the Omnic monk counted as well, he moved and thought as Hanzo did, and that was probably enough to merit the term.

 

The silence was becoming eerie. The sun had set when they arrived, but it had not been late by any stretch of the imagination. It was hard to see why they had met no one. The village seemed well-maintained, and Hanzo had spotted more than one trail of footprints in the dirt and scattered patches of snow on the ground, both human and Omnic, as they had made their way through its paths.

 

The eeriness soon became oppressive, and Hanzo managed to distract himself a little at last by scanning the village below, the buildings around, and the rooftops above for any signs of hostile activity, as absurd as that would be. Would it not be a surprise, he thought, a pleasant surprise, if Genji had concocted some overwrought plot to torture him for a few weeks and then draw him out of Japan to be assassinated, alone and far from home in some far-flung corner of Nepal, by an “Omnic monk”?

 

Absurd. But what a relief it would be! And well-timed, as well. In this fantasy he could even allow Genji the foresight to know that Hanzo would not immediately realize the magnitude of his sin and thus permit him the time for the knowledge to penetrate Hanzo’s thick skull before delivering the killing blow.

 

The rage and shame was stoked once more.

 

The Omnic monk walked on, around and around. Hanzo had satisfied even his painstaking standards for surveillance and was sinking back into a loathsome analysis of Genji’s condition when, finally, the Omnic monk spoke.

 

“How many rounds,” he asked, “do you think will be sufficient?”

 

Hanzo was slightly caught off-guard, but he replied with barely a pause. “As many as necessary.”

 

“I would imagine that one would be as good as twenty,” he responded with an almost--wry?--tone. It was enough for Hanzo to tense slightly. “Surely you tired of it almost immediately.”

 

Hanzo held back a sigh. “No,” he said simply.

 

“No?” repeated the Omnic monk. “I did. I have seen this village a thousand times before, and nothing has changed since I last saw it. Once was enough.”

 

 _Try not to overthink everything he says_ had been Genji’s words, and already the Omnic monk was testing Hanzo’s ability to heed them. The Omnic monk, for his part, made no move to stop or to leave the tower. Hanzo held back a sigh and resisted the strong urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.

 

Patience and respect, he told himself. You owe Genji patience and respect to his master.

 

“I was merely following your lead, since you extended the invitation,” he said as soon as he was reasonably sure his tone would be deferential. “I apologize if I gave the impression that I wished to walk where you did not.”

 

“Hmm,” hummed the Omnic monk, but he made no move to stop. “How long would you have waited before you spoke up?”

 

Hanzo kept silent.

 

“Never,” the Omnic monk mused, speaking the answer aloud. “How unusual. You never would have tolerated such foolishness before.”

 

A chill that had nothing to do with the wind and cold shot through Hanzo. He felt very unequal in this conversation. It was bad enough having to rely entirely on body language while his opponent could probably detect even the smallest facial movement; it was worse still when his opponent had inside information.

 

He breathed as deeply as he dared, forcing his frustration and paranoia down. “You mean to say that Genji believes I would never have tolerated it.”

 

“Of course. I know you only through him, but I do not doubt that neither of us know you well at all.”

 

Hanzo looked off to the side, away from the Omnic monk. “That is true,” he agreed. “Genji did not care to keep up with the clan after a certain age.”

 

“You did not keep up with each other,” corrected the Omnic monk. Hanzo’s eyebrow twitched. Who had tales of his brother’s antics carried to him almost daily, first by their parents, then by the elders, and even by the press on occasion? Not Genji, that was for certain. Nor was it Genji who sought Hanzo out, either on the rooftops of the estate as he tried to sneak out or in, or out in the discotheques and clubs of Hanamura or even further abroad. Genji did not come for Hanzo even _once._

 

It was not as though Hanzo had never secretly gone out, either. He had just gone about it correctly.

 

“Nevertheless, you are brothers in more than just blood,” continued the Omnic monk. “I sense within you the same rage that once consumed your brother.”

 

That was a bold assumption.

 

Too bold.

 

“We are _nothing_ alike.” His voice more of a hiss than he intended. He moderated it before he continued. “His rage is justified. _Mine_ is--” Petulant. Childish. Born from the loss of a life he destroyed with his own hands. “--inexcusable.”

 

“All of it?” The Omnic monk’s voice was light. When Hanzo declined to respond, he sighed. “Still so sure of yourself,” he murmured, “even as you walk the path to destruction.”

 

Hanzo smiled wanly. “The only path.”

 

“I believe that you saw only one path before as well.”

 

Hanzo’s smiled disappeared. He was suddenly aware of his exhaustion, kept at bay for a while by his emotional state and then by the cold, but now rising and spreading through his limbs and clouding his mind, dulling his self-control. The cold on his skin and the exhaustion in his bones dragged at him as though he was wading through water.

 

“Yes,” he admitted, his tongue thick in his mouth. “I saw only a single path set out for us, and I followed it to its end.”

 

“To nobody’s end, actually,” the Omnic monk said gently.

 

Hanzo let out a short, pained breath. “Was it not?” he asked bitterly. “Was it not? Had I met him after, I would not have known him. I did _not_ know him when I met him. I destroyed the man he was, and he had to start anew, from nothing.”

 

“Yes, he once thought that, too.” Hanzo clenched his jaw tight, enough to feel a molar shift slightly with a small taste of blood. “Do not misunderstand,” the Omnic monk stressed, “I do not wish to minimize the magnitude of your crime. You are very nearly correct to say you destroyed him, and he had hardly healed at all in the years between your attack and when we met. He suffered, greatly, in mind, body, and soul. But with great effort and help from many friends past and present, he has rebuilt himself. He is a new man, but he is still himself at his core, and, most important, he is at peace.” The Omnic monk paused. “Or he would be, if he could reconcile one last piece of his past self to his present being.”

 

“Ha,” said Hanzo sourly, “He had his chance, and wasted it. He _has_ his chance but he avoids it.”

 

The Omnic monk stopped dead and turned to him, thrusting out an arm to block Hanzo without touching him. “He sought you out for reconciliation, but he is strong enough to live without it. He knew he must be before he went in search of you.” His voice was as even and measured as ever, but it had a sudden challenging tone, a hidden edge of steel. “If you are only here to force him to walk your old paths, you waste your time. He gorged himself on vengeance and found it to be poison. You _will not_ force any more down his throat.”

 

“His right,” growled Hanzo, not bothering to try to match the Omnic monk’s even tone any longer, “is not vengeance. It is justice. What he calls forgiveness is an excuse at best and a miscarriage of justice at worst.”

 

“If you do not accept his forgiveness, so be it. It is no business of yours whether he gives it or not,” said the Omnic monk defiantly. “And what justice will there be if he murders you? Will it restore his old body, his old life? Will he find himself back in the bosom of his clan?” The Omnic monk paused for a moment, and then, in a bizarrely softened tone, “Will it even prevent more innocent bloodshed? You have not been idle these ten years, Shimada-san. You have killed many in that time, but--how many did not deserve it?” He waited for a few beats of silence, but more to let Hanzo think than to reply, it seemed, because he added, with a tone of finality, “As far as Genji has been able to discover, none. No amount of money could sway you on that point.”

 

So this was how the Omnic monk had wheedled his way between Genji and his right! Hanzo would not even attempt to guess how long it must have took to browbeat his headstrong, stubborn brother into accepting such a watered-down, insufficient, and shortsighted view of justice. How long had it taken for Genji to accept such doctrine when he knew his murderer still walked the earth free and whole?

 

What kind of manipulation, mused Hanzo as he thought back to the anonymous rooftop in Niigata with his brother on the comm begging him to accept aid, was strong enough to even convince Genji that he was worth saving?

 

He unbuttoned his left cuff, the motion made slightly awkward by the heavy jacket over his right arm, but he refused to look away from the Omnic monk’s face.

 

“Justice,” he said quietly, “is not merely restoration, or prevention of further harm. It is a payment for debts beyond payment. I cannot give Genji back what I took from him, but I owe him nonetheless. He has chosen insufficient remittance, and it will not be enough to satisfy either him--” and he rolled up his sleeve to the elbow, revealing the intricate design of the dragon on his smooth, unpebbled skin, “--or those who watch from beyond.”

 

He raised his arm, his fingers curled around the orb, so that the open snarl of the dragon could face the Omnic monk alongside Hanzo’s own piercing glare. “Do you not understand that there are laws that govern us from a place of higher understanding? They are clear on the matter of betrayal that severs the strongest of bonds, and they dictate the proper response.” He reached out with his mind, and he felt the dragons stir to confirm their master’s words. From the spaces between his tattoo and his skin came the electric blue glow, less intense than in the midst of battle but still otherworldly and spectral, enveloping his arm in a cloud of light.

 

“Genji knows this, despite any words of yours that have clouded his mind,” he declared. “He will remember it and cast aside this inadequate penance he has demanded. It is only a question of time, Tekhartha Zenyatta.”

 

The Omnic monk did not react, either to Hanzo’s words or the dragons, for a long time. The wind whistled over the walls of the village, gusting enough to send a slight breeze through the bells and windchimes hanging underneath a nearby balcony.

 

The Omnic turned away, clasping his hands behind his back once more.

 

Hanzo felt a surge of bizarre triumph.

 

But the Omnic monk’s next words surprised Hanzo, laced with heavy disappointment.

 

“Has he learned nothing after all? Did he offer his forgiveness for a price despite all my cautioning?”

 

The blue light faded, sinking back into the spaces from whence it came.

 

“No,” Hanzo said, turning away as he rebuttoned his cuffs, seeing to his annoyance that he had forgotten the other from earlier, by the transport. “He did not set a price on something so futile. I _reminded_ him of his right, that my life was his. Instead of claiming it, he gave it away, to _Overwatch,_ ” he spat. “So here I must remain, until--”

 

“Ah,” interrupted the Omnic monk with an air of dawning realization. “Now I understand.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips, fighting back a sigh of deep frustration. “Understand?” he asked tiredly, looking over his shoulder.

 

The Omnic monk turned back to face him, nodding his head. “I had wondered,” he said slowly, “why you chose to remain, why you were so docile. It surprised Genji, and by extension myself.”

 

Hanzo felt his hackles rise at such a term as “docile”, but he could not honestly dispute it. It was the goal, really, of an inferior following their superiors. But before his anger could again slip through his weary fingers, the Omnic monk surprised him once more.

 

“Genji,” he said with great preoccupation, “has committed a grave error.”

 

In an instant, the anger and frustration drained out of Hanzo, leaving behind a numb void. His jaw felt like it might slacken from what might be relief, but he did not allow himself to hope, not just yet. Slowly, more tentative than he had been in years, he ventured a quiet, “You agree?”

 

The Omnic monk stepped up to him. He unfolded his hands from behind his back and made to place a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder, but at the last moment he stopped, the bony hand hovering but not touching. “Not,” he said gently, “in the way you hope.”

 

The disappointment was a strong yet distant thing, echoing slightly in the void that had opened in his interior. Hanzo looked away.

 

“I almost hope I am incorrect,” the Omnic monk continued, almost to himself. “It will be another obstacle, an unnecessary obstacle.” He shook his head and stepped back. “Now--now I _would_ give you an orb,” he said with an almost pitying edge to his voice.

 

That provoked Hanzo once more, but not enough to do anything more but turn to face him head on and say, “I would not accept it.”

 

“No,” said the Omnic monk thoughtfully, turning his head and raising a hand to his bronze chin. They were on the side of the cupola facing the closed doors of the building across the bridge. The Omnic monk stared at them for a few moments. “I wonder when you would have,” he mused.

 

Hanzo shifted slightly, scowling.

 

They stood there for a long time, the Omnic monk seemingly lost in thought and Hanzo simply watching him, feeling the void inside him shrink under a heavy weight of fatigue. At last the Omnic monk shook himself out of his reverie, a strangely human-looking action. “We should be on our way,” he said, turning away, folding his hands behind his back once more, and heading back the way they came. “I have stretched my favor from Agent McCree far enough.”

 

Hanzo watched him go for a few moments before he almost trudged after him, not bothering to try to catch up. He was, frankly, glad for this sudden end to their conversation. He almost unclipped the comm from his belt to see how much time had passed, but in the end he did not want to know how little it really was when it seemed so long.

 

They crossed the platform, but instead of taking the same route back the Omnic monk descended one of the flights of stone steps on either side of the platform down into the marketplace itself, apparently intending to go back through the main village. Hanzo wavered for a moment before he followed. He had an intense desire for solitude, even for the spare few minutes it would take to walk back to the transport. The Omnic monk had not rescinded his invitation, though, so Hanzo must still accompany him.

 

The way back was far less linear. They edged around the town hall and through an open gate that mirrored the one visible from the tower, a windbreak of stone and wooden screens a few meters in front to prevent gusts from sweeping into the marketplace. The path was unpaved again as it wound between the buildings. There was still the occasional storefront, but the entrances were sturdily shut up against the wind that blew unimpeded through the streets.

 

Hanzo hoped the abrupt quiet would last until they returned to the transport as they made their way, but to his displeasure the Omnic monk, who had been keeping ahead, soon slowed to allow Hanzo to catch up. He mercifully remained silent once they were once more side-by-side, but only until the top of the transport came into view around one last small outbuilding. Then he gave an strange electronic cough-like sound before saying, “Now that you have gotten a good look at it, what do you think of your brother’s home?”

 

Another unexpected question, and Hanzo could not help but look over his shoulder, out of surprise bordering on shock. This-- _this_ was Genji’s home? A tiny village clinging to the side of the Himalayas? Did it even have electricity and running water? Hanzo had not spotted any photovoltaic roofing or windmills to indicate that it did, as ridiculous as that would be in a village that presumably held so many Omnics. Could there be a fusion plant out here?

 

Whether it did or not, Hanzo could not imagine a less suitable place for the green-haired hellion he had known. Genji had complained endlessly when he went even slightly outside the confines of modern civilization. He had not even been able to endure the climb to the top of Fuji-san because the cell service was poor and he could not bear to be away from his diversions for even a day, much less the trips deep into the countryside that Hanzo had favored.

 

Of course--those trips had been an escape for Hanzo, a temporary reprieve from the constantly mounting pressure of his life.

 

Perhaps Genji had found himself in need of a similar escape. If escape was possible.

 

The Omnic monk seemed to expect a reply, despite everything. Hanzo’s tolerance was nearly spent, and he wished for nothing more than to return to the transport and hand the Omnic monk over to the Overwatch agents while he mimicked the person he had forced his brother to become and faded into a dark corner.

 

He tried to summon one last effort at civility. “It is--” Oh, how tired and weak he sounded! “--it is peaceful.”

 

“Not for you,” the Omnic monk said introspectively. “It is a great contrast, the stillness and tranquility around us and the turmoil in your soul. I have only added to it. My sincere apologies. It was not my intention.”

 

Hanzo took a deep breath, subconsciously squeezing the brass orb in his hand. “And what _was_ your intention?” He meant to growl the words, but they came out as a tired grumble. He began to feel his fury building again; he was approaching nearly forty hours without sleep, but he had gone four days without sleep many times before and remained in better control than _this._ If he was so compromised, the stimulants in his cello case were now a necessity, dangers be damned.

 

The Omnic monk did not reply for a few moments as they descended a small incline that led into the plaza the transport had landed in. From this angle Hanzo could see that the transport was actually hovering over a cliff face, explaining why Agent Tracer’s chosen landing spot was practically inside the village.

 

“My intention,” he said finally, almost hesitantly, “was to encourage you to commit to a path forward. You have been circling in place for a long time, and I believed you needed a push, probably more than one, to advance. Not necessarily towards your brother, but to advance nonetheless. I did not realize,” he finished heavily, “that Genji prevents you from doing so.”

 

Hanzo refrained from rolling his eyes, but only just. How could he not know? Genji was the lynchpin, the keystone, the crux of the matter. But, as the Omnic monk had said back at the tower, he probably did not mean it in the way Hanzo hoped. But Hanzo was done puzzling out the Omnic monk’s intentions and words; Genji had told him not to, anyway.

 

The Omnic monk did not say anything more until they reached the foot of the ramp, when he once more held out a hand to detain Hanzo without touching him. “My thanks,” he said formally, “for your company. It has given me much to think of.” Hanzo bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment, which was all the courtesy he could muster, but the Omnic monk continued. “I hope that we will become better acquainted. I see no reason why we should not, and more than one why we should, despite how much you will doubt that.” Hanzo could not help the cool look he shot the monk. He seemed to absorb it without issue, but how could one tell?

 

“One last thing while we are in private.” The Omnic monk hesitated for a moment, then nodded at the orb in Hanzo’s hand. “That is far more than a trinket or bauble. Ani is not only compassionate, but generous. It is a multi-tool, an intricate piece of technology that the Shambali craft by hand to assist them in their quest for balance and enlightenment, a conduit of Omnic energy. It is more useful than you may imagine. I will use these--” he touched one of the orbs that floated around his neck with a bony finger. It emitted a soft chiming noise. “--in battle, to attack, to defend, and to heal.” The Omnic monk paused as he stared at Hanzo’s orb.

 

“This last function,” he said softly, “is likely why Ani gifted it to you. It can help you, in more ways than one, physically, mentally--and spiritually if you allow it.” He looked at Hanzo’s face, and Hanzo felt the same feeling of scrutinization he had received from the Omnic nun.

 

“I know you will not wish to,” he conceded, and Hanzo felt a strange shiver run through his body when he recognized a distinct note of regret in the Omnic monk’s voice. “I do not pressure you to. Your reasons to reject her gift are why I did not give you one of my own, as I otherwise would to the family of one so close to me. But now that I may understand you a little better--I do not believe her gift is misplaced.”

 

With that, the Omnic monk stepped up onto the ramp, but he stopped and nodded to Hanzo. “Shall we, Shimada-san?”

 

After a moment, Hanzo stepped up after him. They both said nothing more as they walked up the ramp and through the forcefield over the transport’s entrance. Across from them, Agent Tracer, the doctor, the cowboy, and 76 looked up. They were all sitting at the rec table, playing cards spread out across its surface.

 

“There ya are,” said the cowboy. He was sitting near to one end of the loveseat, and he immediately moved to the end and stood. “Startin’ t’wonder where y’all got off to.”

 

“My apologies, Agent McCree,” said the Omnic monk, switching to English and speaking over the hatch as it rose into place and sealed. “I did not anticipate the time it would take. I hope I have not delayed us.”

 

“Naw,” replied the cowboy. He was looking at the Omnic monk, but Hanzo caught more than one glance directed at himself as he stood awkwardly at the Omnic monk’s side under the curious gazes of the other Overwatch agents. He wondered, briefly, what they thought they had discussed during their “walk”, but he found he was far too tired to care.

 

He walked forward, shrugging 76’s jacket off his arm and into his hands as he went. He heard the Omnic monk follow. His metal feet sounded heavier and clunkier on the transport’s flooring than Hanzo’s own prosthetics, and he found himself irrationally pleased that they sounded so dissimilar. 76 was sitting near the other end of the loveseat, holding a few cards in one brawny hand. He nodded in thanks as Hanzo handed him his jacket. He immediately felt the inner lining, shaking his head as Hanzo stepped back. “Didn’t need it, huh? Don’t know if you’re a heatpack or just damned stubborn.”

 

“Neither,” Hanzo murmured. He had felt the cold while he was out there, but only now in the warmth of the transport could he really appreciate the chill that saturated his skin. It was like entering a warm bath, especially with how heavy his fatigued limbs felt.

 

The doctor waved a couple of sheets of paper at him, clutched in her hand along with the passport he had given her. “Here are your papers, Mr. Sakaguchi,” she said with a small conspiratorial smile, “both your certificate of vaccination and your work visa.” She had to partially stand and lean over the table to hand them to him, though her use of his alias’ name was enough to make him almost snatch the papers out of her hand, causing her smile to falter.

 

“Excuse me,” he muttered as he looked over the papers emblazoned with the three lions that appeared both on the State Emblem of India and the Seal of Andhra Pradesh. He took in a deep breath in an effort to settle and center himself before he looked at her, focusing just below her eyes. “Thank you,” he said in a tone he hoped was both deferential and apologetic. At her slight nod he headed for the shelves, both to put away the passport and papers and to find the stimulants at long last.

 

“Thank you again, Shimada-san,” the Omnic monk called after him. Hanzo, under the scrutiny of the others in the room, stopped and turned and gave a slight bow before continuing in his quest.

 

He slipped the papers into his suitcase before he spared a brief look at the orb. The blue-white light pulsed slightly in the circular grooves, keeping a steady albeit slow rhythm. He supposed he was stuck with it for the time being. The slim hope that the Omnic monk would take care of it was gone, and the alternative was to drop it in the snow outside. Given the words of the Omnic monk, that would most likely be an affront, though Hanzo maintained that it was an affront to Genji to offer it in the first place. Perhaps Genji himself should be the one to decide what to do with it, but Hanzo did not trust that he would act correctly. As he was now, he would most likely insist that Hanzo accept it.

 

He gave a small sigh. He would determine what to do with it later, when he was actually functional.

 

He unlatched the cello case, stuffed the orb into one of the inner pockets, and began rummaging through it for the stimulants, but he heard the spurs of the cowboy approach just as his hand closed around the bottle of pills. He sighed again. He had hoped the Omnic monk would serve as a distraction while Hanzo took the stimulants--he had not obtained them legally, after all. He released the bottle and withdrew a stick of lip balm instead, thankful that a ready excuse had been so close at hand.

 

“Yes?” he asked when the cowboy said nothing.

 

“Athena says you haven’ slept since we left Daisen.” The cowboy’s voice was hushed and hesitant.

 

Hanzo sighed and shot a look upwards, as though the AI was spying on him from some high vantage point. “No. But I will be ready when we reach the Satellite Campus.”

 

The cowboy gave a dry chuckle. “I’m sure you will, but more t’the point, Angie was a little worried is all. If you were already tired, the altitude and the cold weren’ doin’ you any favors. Just wanted t’warn ya that you might feel a mite dizzy now that Athena’s bringin' the air pressure back up.”

 

Indeed, Hanzo could hear a slight whooshing sound coming from the ceiling above, and already the pressure was mounting in his ears. He relieved them with a slight tense in his throat before he responded. “Thank you for the warning.”

 

“No problem,” said the cowboy with no small amount of relief in his voice. “As soon as--uh, I gotta take care of some things right after we take off, but right after I need t’take you through the security subsystem we’ll be leavin' with ya. It’s basically a mobile offshoot of Athena so she can monitor your homebase and alert you t’any break-ins or anything suspicious.”

 

Hanzo nodded. “Understood.”

 

“I, uh, we got some coffee ready over there. You want any before we take off?”

 

Hanzo considered. If he drank coffee, he would not be able to take the stimulants--they tended to form an all-too-potent combination with caffeine. At that moment it did not seem like caffeine alone would be anywhere near strong enough to rouse him, but perhaps that was owing to the altitude more than anything.

 

At any rate, the AI was closely watching him, so she would most likely witness his consumption of his stimulants--it was lucky the cowboy had interrupted him. Besides, she had already advised the cowboy and the doctor of his lack of sleep, so it would look suspicious if he was suddenly energetic without anything to account for it.

 

He quickly applied the lip balm before dropping it back in the cello case and latching it shut. “Yes, that would be helpful,” he allowed as he headed back to the rec table. A large coffee pot sat in the middle of it, with a spare mug next to it. He leaned over the table to grab both, ignoring the conversation the others were having with the Omnic monk--something about accommodations at the Gibraltar base. He filled the mug, tested the coffee with a small sip, and drained the mug in a few gulps when it proved to be hot but not scalding. He tried not to revel in the warmth of it sitting in his stomach as he immediately poured himself another, a task made easier by the glances everyone in the room seemed to be throwing him.

 

Agent Tracer’s were furtive, while the doctor seemed intent on monitoring him as thoroughly yet clandestinely as possible, thoroughly failing at the latter. The Soldier was, ironically enough given the visor, more open, watching him drain the second cup with a slight tilt of his head as he put his jacket back on. The cowboy was watching him with the most stealth, from the corner of his eye as he spoke with the Omnic monk.

 

He filled his mug a third time and retreated, briefly considering whether he should go upstairs to sit at one of the workstations to put more distance between himself and the rest. That line of thought was stopped by Agent Tracer loudly exclaiming, “Hold it! Don’t tell him anything more ‘til I get us in the air! Everyone to your seats!” She flashed past him and up into the cockpit.

 

Hanzo sat in the jumpseat, drinking his coffee slower than before but with the end of finishing before they took off. Soldier: 76 followed Agent Tracer’s afterimage up the stairs while the doctor and the Omnic monk, engrossed in conversation, drifted over to the opposite jumpseats. He could catch many excessively syllabic medical terms in the space of a few exchanged sentences, but few that he understood. The cowboy trailed behind them at first, his face scrunched in a look of concentration before he shook his head and headed for his own jumpseat, falling into it with a sigh.

 

“Interestin’ stuff I’m sure, if you speak the language,” he commented as he lowered the restraint over his chest. “Zenyatta’s gonna be our third medic, but he swears he can go on the offense if need be. He and Angie are hashing out what he does and how he does it. Something t’do with energy transference, but Angie’s breaking out five- and six-syllable medical terms, and I ain’ got time t’listen t’those.” Hanzo gave a tiny nod in response, slightly amused at his unwitting agreement with himself. The cowboy eyed his hand. “Speakin’ of which, how’s yer hand?”

 

“Fi--” began Hanzo automatically, but he had flexed his fingers instinctively at the cowboy’s question and found that they _were_ fine. He raised his hand in surprise, examining the unexpectedly whole skin for any sign of burns or inflammation and finding none. The snout of the dragon peaked out slightly from under his cuff. He looked up and narrowed his eyes at the Omnic monk, but he gave no sign of noticing, riveted as he was by the doctor.  

 

The cowboy saw it all, of course, and glanced between Hanzo and the Omnic monk. “He do you a favor while you were out there?” he asked in a low, curious voice.

 

Hanzo swallowed. Then he thought of the orb stowed away in his case and he relaxed slightly. “No,” he said. “The Omnic nun, Ani Choying Drolma, is responsible.” The cowboy raised his eyebrows, and Hanzo hastened to add, “It was not appropriate. Agent Zenyatta agrees.”

 

The cowboy looked confused but nodded.

 

Agent Tracer got them in the air with as little fanfare as her style allowed. The Omnic monk chuckled appreciatively at her flight announcements as the village disappeared from view through the hatch. Before long Agent Tracer released their restraints and the lights shifted back to more normal illumination.

 

Hanzo remained where he was, both to allow the Overwatch agents to once more cluster around the Omnic monk sitting at the rec table, all minus Soldier: 76, and to allow his stomach to finish rippling and gurgling. It was taking much longer this time around; a consequence, perhaps, of his lack of sleep, overenthusiastic coffee binge, and his generally foul mood that refused to settle as stubbornly as his stomach.

 

He swallowed back the slight taste of bile in his mouth as he unclipped the comm from his belt in a bid to distract himself. Even so, the conversation at the rec table intruded on his thoughts as he tried to find something to lose himself in.

 

“-- _loved_ basketball, so of course he had them build one,” said the doctor. He glanced up to see her smile fondly at the half court markings on the floor below the hoop mounted on the wall.

 

“I see,” said the Omnic monk, tapping his chin with a dull clinking noise. “Was he responsible for the other modifications as well?”

 

“Oh yes. Originally the Orca could hold two or three companies, but during the Crisis Commander Reyes rarely had more than the original strike team with him _and_ they were spending more time traveling than fighting at times. After Silicon Valley, he had them take out most of the deck plating. He didn’t like enclosed spaces and wanted it as airy as possible, you see.”

 

The cowboy grunted. “That’s what he _said,_ ” he drawled with a small grin. “Had t’have a vaguely medical excuse t’push it through. Truth be told, he wanted a basketball court and a goddamned rock climbing wall.”

 

“What, _really?_ ” Agent Tracer squealed, eyes shining. “Where?!”

 

The cowboy gestured at the rec table around them. “Right here.” He tilted his head back and squinted upwards. His hat shifted slightly but did not fall off despite the angle. “I dunno if you can tell anymore, but there used t’be holes left over from it up near the ceiling. Musta been covered over in durin’ one of the makeovers after they gave it t’ _Jack._ ” His voice was light up until the end of his sentence, when it dropped into an almost resentful tone.

 

Silence fell. Hanzo could feel the sudden awkward tension in the air from the other side of the room.

 

“Hey, Agent Shimada? You good t’go over the subsystem?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. He did not appreciate being used by the cowboy to escape a conversation gone sour. Nevertheless, he answered in the affirmative and got to his feet. The cowboy had already abandoned the rec table and was walking with large strides to the increasingly burdened shelves holding everyone’s equipment.

 

“We got it on the charger over here below your stuff. Have a look.” The cowboy hefted what looked to be an ordinary suitcase with a grey metallic sheen off the bottom shelf and onto the floor. He squatted next to it as he punched a code into a small keypad mounted next to the handle. With a click, the suitcase popped open, revealing a smaller than expected compartment lined with foam. Set into the foam were six odd-looking, triangular metal objects about the size of a small smartphone. The cowboy took one out and began tossing and catching it like a flat baseball.

 

“This thing’s pretty self-sufficient,” he said with a determinedly casual voice. “You got six spyders here and--” he lifted one edge of the foam to reveal electronic sensors and lenses, “--your own private piece of Athena here.” Hanzo nodded as he knelt on the floor across from the cowboy, setting his mug off to the side.

 

It took longer than expected for the cowboy to take Hanzo through most of the functions of the subsystem. It was partially because part of the process included manually adding Hanzo’s identification codes into the subsystem’s isolated backup memory in case a remote attack corrupted or modified the main system, and partially because the cowboy was obviously drawing out the process. He spoke slowly and took his time explaining more of the subsystem’s capabilities than was strictly necessary. For one, the subsystem was essentially an extension of Athena and therefore highly autonomous. It would only check in with Athena a few times a day rather than be in continuous communication with her, so it had to be able to assess its surroundings and communicate with Hanzo on its own. For another, Hanzo would not be relying on it at all. His need for rest might mean that he would trust in its initial scan of his homebase when he arrived at the Satellite Campus, but as soon as he had slept he could be conducting his own reconnaissance and surveillance.  

 

Hanzo was not sure what to make of the cowboy’s behavior. Had he been so affected by the turn the conversation had taken? Why?

 

Finally the cowboy sat back on the ground, his spurs jingling and scraping against the deck plating. “And that’s that,” he declared with a small smile. “Easy enough.”

 

“Of course,” was Hanzo only reply. One unfortunate side effect of the cowboy’s longwinded tutorial was that it thoroughly overpowered the caffeine Hanzo had consumed, and to his chagrin it plainly showed. He could either keep his shoulders from sagging or pay attention to the subsystem, but not both. At least, not for long. Soon he had given up and let his frame collapse. He straightened now, and he reached out and closed the suitcase. It locked automatically, and Hanzo rose to his feet, lifting the suitcase with him, his thighs protesting even under the modest weight. “How long will the initial scan take when I arrive at the apartment?”

 

The cowboy looked up at him with a considering look. “Dunno. Sometimes it takes up to an hour, specially if there are a bunch of nooks and crannies.”

 

Hanzo nodded distractedly. A half-hour until they landed in Nallamala Forest. Another hour and a half to get to his homebase. An unknown amount of time to move all his equipment inside the apartment, and then, finally, an hour before the subsystem would be up and running.

 

He pinched the bridge of his nose briefly as he stowed the subsystem back on top of the wireless charge built into the shelves. Three hours, minimum. Likely longer.

 

He picked his coffee mug up off the floor and headed for the coffee machine. The Omnic monk had been accompanying Agent Tracer each time she went to do a status check, saying something about enjoying the view. They were up there now, leaving the doctor to browse her comm at the rec table. She glanced up at him and did an unsubtle double-take. “Are you feeling alright, Mr. Shimada?” she asked, concern evident. “How are you recovering from the altitude?”

 

He was more than willing to blame many things about that damned village for his current state, altitude included, but he would never admit it outloud. “I am fine, Dr. Ziegler. I believe rest is all I need,” he assured her as he filled the mug at the machine.  

 

She nodded sympathetically. “It’s a shame you get so airsick,” she said. “Traveling is bad enough without being able to sleep.”

 

Hanzo grit his teeth for a moment, but decided to allow her assumption to stand. “Yes,” he muttered. “I greatly prefer traveling by car or train. They are superior to air travel in most respects.”

 

“So you don’ get carsick?” interjected the cowboy with sudden intense interest.

 

Hanzo turned slowly, brow furrowed. “No,” he said cautiously. “Why?”

 

“Give me a sec,” the cowboy replied with a strange look, like he was trying not to smile as he unclipped his comm from his belt. “I gotta check something real quick.” He walked off and sat in a jumpseat, his fingers skittering over the screen.

 

Hanzo studied him for a few moments, but whatever task the cowboy had set for himself stretched on, so Hanzo took the opportunity to grab a new set of clothes out of the cello case, another longsleeved button-down and a pair of pants that better disguised his prosthetics, along with his washcloth, to take up to the WC. The water from the sink got no colder than lukewarm, but he dampened the washcloth and dabbed at his face anyway in a lastditch effort to wake himself. It did as little as he expected, and he soon gave up and finished changing.

 

“Ladies, gentlemen, and Omnics!” boomed Agent Tracer as soon as he opened the WC door. “We will be arriving in Nallamala Forest in ten minutes! We ask that you please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts! _Bong!_ ”

 

Hanzo returned to his jumpseat for what he hoped was the last time for a long while. The cowboy was still working at his comm, biting his bottom lip in intense concentration. Hanzo paid him little heed; he was too busy running through his itinerary.

 

A self-driving sedan was meeting them deep within Nallamala Forest, a large reserve that ran along the windward side of the Nallamala portion of the Eastern Ghats, a mountain range that separated the Satellite Campus from the Bay of Bengal. The drop point was fairly high up on the slopes of the mountains, so it would take some time for the car to pick its way through the narrow mountain roads and switchbacks before it finally descended into the lowlands where the Satellite Campus’ own satellite communities crunched up against the borders of the forest reserve.

 

From there it would be a fairly smooth journey into Tartur, a suburb just outside the Inner Ring of cities that had sprung up around the Satellite Campus. The self-guided car would deliver him straight to the apartment complex and then remain on hand for the duration of the mission in case Hanzo had need of it for one reason or another.

 

Simple. The time table was the only hangup. He was lucky that his motion sickness was limited to water and air travel, but in this case Hanzo would almost prefer not being so comfortable in cars. It would be a struggle to remain awake, and if he _did_ fall asleep, he was likely to be unacceptably groggy when he arrived in Tartur. He might miss something important. Winston had selected this apartment complex because he believed it was free of Vishkar influence and technology, but it was still very close to the Inner Ring. What if Vishkar had recently expanded its influence and set up shop nearby? Vishkar was notorious for tracking people’s movements in order to anticipate their needs and desires--it would be unacceptable if Hanzo was being monitored in his own base.

 

He sighed. The stimulants would be necessary.

 

He watched out the hatch window as Agent Tracer swooped in low over the forest canopy. The reserve was obviously large, but even from here he could see the glittering lights of the densely packed Kurnool District on the horizon, juxtaposed with the nearly black mass of the trees. Agent Tracer brought the transport to a stop and slowly lowered it to the ground, the thin, loosely packed branches of the surrounding trees slowly obscuring the city lights far beyond.

 

“ _Bong!_ Welcome to Nallamala! The time is 10:54PM, the temperature is currently 29°C, and the forecast tomorrow calls for a high of-- _39°C with 85% humidity?!_ ”

 

Hanzo grimaced.

 

He stood and went to collect his equipment: the cello case, the suitcase from his cache, the pack, and the security subsystem, ordering it neatly by the hatch. As he placed the security system on the floor, a flash of light from outside caught his eye. It was a pair of headlights, slowly approaching.

 

“There’s your ride.” Soldier: 76’s voice floated down the stairs, followed by Soldier: 76 himself. He joined Hanzo by the hatch, lifting up the suitcase easily. “No elephants, hyenas, honey badgers, or tigers around as far as Athena can tell, but watch your step,” he cautioned. “There are a lot of venomous snakes around here, and antigrav doesn’t send enough vibrations through the ground to scare them off. Mercy’s here to treat you if you do step on a krait or a viper, but don’t push your luck.” Hanzo raised an eyebrow but nodded anyway as he picked up the case, and only then did the hatch open. The forcefield activated once more, holding the heat and humidity at bay until 76 led him out. It felt like walking into an _onsen._

 

The transport had landed in a large clearing, the trees standing a few dozen meters away. It may have been a campground once; the small silver four-door sedan was following an old, cracked concrete road the cut a small semi-circle across the clearing before arcing back into the forest. The clearing’s floor was covered in thick grass and low shrubs, though it was thankfully much lower than the grass that had surrounded the transport in Daisen. It was still more than enough to provide cover for any number of serpents. He was about to offer to check around the sedan as it came to a stop a little ways away and settled on the ground, considering his prosthetics, but 76 marched ahead and began stomping on the ground, hard, as he slowly moved forward, apparently trusting in his thick boots if anything venomous did not get out of the way in time.

 

Hanzo shook his head and followed at a close but respectful distance. He was more concerned about any spitting snakes than anything, but if there were any nearby they did not make themselves known. They made it to the sedan without any trouble, and 76 stomped a full circle around it while Hanzo keyed in the code and unlocked the doors, intending to throw everything but the subsystem in the back seat for ease of access.

 

They returned for the rest of Hanzo’s possessions, and Hanzo suppressed a grimace to see the others gathered by the hatch.

 

The doctor held out his pack with a smile. “Well, Mr. Shimada, this is farewell for the time being.”

 

“Yes,” he answered as he accepted it and swung it onto his shoulder. “Thank you for your assistance.”

 

“Not at all. Be careful, and good luck.”

 

“Yeah, good luck!” piped up Agent Tracer, with a wide, false smile of her own. “Try the _haleem_ while you’re here! It’s really good in Hyderabad, and that’s not too far from here.”

 

“Thank you, Agent Tracer,” Hanzo said in a carefully neutral tone. The corners of her smile threatened to turn down.

 

“Go in peace, Shimada Hanzo,” said the Omnic monk with a formal bow. “May the Iris watch over you and embrace you.” Hanzo bowed stiffly in reply.

 

The cowboy stepped forward, holding up the subsystem. “I got this for ya. I just need one last word with ya before you go.” Hanzo nodded, eyes narrowed slightly, and the cowboy ambled out the hatch, letting out a hiss at the humid air as he went.

 

“Stay sharp,” said the Soldier. “Try not to get yourself killed out there.”

 

Hanzo scoffed. “I am not so easy a target.” He cringed inwardly, but 76 only gave a short laugh and waved him off. Hanzo turned and walked down the hatch, deciding to blame his exhaustion both for the strangely candid moment and for the relief now flooding through him.

 

It was stemmed somewhat by the sight of the cowboy, but at least he had apparently thought the same as Hanzo as he threw the subsystem in the trunk and slammed it closed. He came around the sedan and opened the passenger door as Hanzo approached. He nodded as he shrugged off his pack and tossed it onto the seat.

 

“Alright,” the cowboy said. “Bet you’re ready t’get back in the saddle.” Hanzo pursed his lips at the phrase but nodded.

 

The cowboy studied him for a moment. “So--we had a--a little trick back in Blackwatch.”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow. The cowboy’s face was only half-lit by the light streaming out of the hatch, but he could make out a wary smile.

 

“We weren’ strangers t’sleeplessness back then, and we had t’grab what we could when we could, y’know?”

 

Hanzo rolled his shoulders back a little to offset a twinge of impatience. The cowboy, surprisingly, seemed to take notice and shook himself. “Right, I’ll get t’the point. Back in Blackwatch when we needed t’get some shuteye but didn’ have anyplace secure t’sleep, we used t’program cars like this t’just wander around until we felt alive again. We could get two or four, maybe even a full eight hours of sleep that way, and you look like you need it.”

 

Hanzo went rigid at that last sentence, but the cowboy seemed to realize the mistake almost as soon as he made it. He clamped his mouth shut for a moment, pressing his lips together and looking furious with himself, but after a moment he opened his mouth and ventured a short, “I, uh, I mean--” Then he heaved a long sigh. “Aw, t’hell with it. You need sleep. I know it and you know it. Just ‘cause I said it outloud doesn’ change anything.”

 

That much was true, thought Hanzo reluctantly. In addition, he could not refuse the cowboy’s plan out of hand when the cowboy, the doctor, and the AI had all together noted his weariness. He looked away from the cowboy to consider the sedan’s interior through its windows. From what he could tell, this model appeared very similar to the ones back home in both size and amenities, so space and comfort would not be an issue. But this plan of the cowboy’s needed more analysis.

 

“Even two hours is a long car trip,” he said cautiously. “That would take me almost to Goa or Chennai.”

 

The cowboy nodded vigorously, looking almost pleased. “In the hyperlanes it would,” he agreed. He unclipped his comm and flourished it. “But I’ve been looking at routes since you mentioned you don’ get carsick. I got one that’ll take you in a big ol’ circle around the Nallamala Range. Doesn’ even leave Andhra Pradesh. It stays on local roads, so a full circuit would take ten hours, but there’re plenty of mountain passes you can cut through if you’re ready t’go before then, plus plenty of pit stops for all that coffee you drank.”

 

The cowboy could not seem to conclude anything he said without irritating Hanzo--but once again, it was not as though he was wrong. Hanzo would almost certainly require a--pit stop.

 

He reached out a hand. “Let me see the route you have chosen.”

 

The cowboy grinned as he passed him his comm. Hanzo gave only a cool considering look in return before he examined the highlighted roads on the screen. As the cowboy said, it circumnavigated the mountains, with several shortcuts across them also marked. He nodded contemplatively as he zoomed in and traced the route.

 

The cowboy seemed to take that as a good sign. “It even stays away from Vishkar-owned and affiliated business centers,” he offered, with the air of a businessman expecting to seal a deal. “Just so they won’ register you before you go into the Inner Ring.”

 

Hanzo grunted. As far as he could tell, the cowboy was right, though he would approach and pass within forty kilometers of Utopaea itself, which in most cases would be too close for comfort with such an entrenched and influential organization on its home turf. But the route turned away and crossed the mountain range before it entered Guntur-Utopaea District, staying within the forest reserve where development was heavily restricted.

 

The cowboy was studying him, biting his bottom lip as he did so.

 

“If you’d rather set up your homebase,” he said with less confidence than before, “that’ll do fine. This is just--just an alternative. The apartment will be waitin’ for ya either way. Although--y’know, funnily enough there’s only three hours’ difference between you here and Winston, so if you went straight there, it’ll be past midnight for him and none of us would be awake enough t’monitor you in case you trigger something with your scan. So really, it’d be in everyone’s best interest if--”

 

Hanzo gave a small sigh. It was obvious what the cowboy wanted him to do, as much effort as he was putting into making it appear to be in Hanzo’s control.

 

“I will follow your route,” he interrupted, holding out the cowboy’s comm.

 

The cowboy blinked. Then with a dubious tone, “Just follow it, or actually sleep while you’re on it? That’s the whole point, y’know.”

 

Hanzo rolled his eyes. He was not _that_ mulish. “As you, Dr. Ziegler, and Athena have all observed, I likely could not stay awake on such a long car trip even if I wanted to,” he said. “I will follow this Blackwatch protocol of yours.”

 

The cowboy huffed a laugh. “Ain’ a Blackwatch protocol now. Not anymore. Just Overwatch.”

 

“As you say,” said Hanzo as he circled around the sedan to the driver’s door. “Is there anything else I must know?”

 

The cowboy considered as he rubbed his chin. “Naw, that’ll be it, I reckon. I’ll just send you the route. Don’ worry about checkin’ in until you’re headin’ in, just make sure your comm’s workin’.”

 

“Understood.”

 

“Good luck, Agent Shimada. Talk t’ya soon.” The cowboy smiled and-- _tipped his hat._ Hanzo could not help but stare for a moment, nonplussed, long enough for the cowboy to chuckle uncomfortably even as his fingers lingered on the brim. That snapped Hanzo out of the odd moment. Although--why should it be odd? The man wore a cowboy hat, after all. That is what they did with cowboy hats, was it not?

 

He gave a belated but firm nod, opened the door and climbed into the driver’s seat. The cowboy gave him one last appraising look as he clicked his seatbelt on before he turned and climbed the ramp back into the transport. Soon after he disappeared inside, Hanzo’s comm chimed.

 

Hanzo connected the comm to the car’s interface, watching the small screen on the console mirror the comm’s as it uploaded the route. A warning popped up, asking if Hanzo would be awake and able to take over in case of emergency.

 

He hesitated, loathe to give away his lack of alertness. It would be irresponsible to say he would be awake if he was not--the car was asking mainly if it found itself in the midst of a crowd of pedestrians or in a downpour heavy enough to confuse its sensors. If it thought he was awake, it might transfer control to him when he was not ready for it. If it knew he was asleep, it would stop, alert him, and wait for him.

 

Perhaps this was a bad idea after all, but he had already agreed to the cowboy’s plan. He looked over his shoulder at the cello case. Perhaps he should--

 

Then he heaved a great sigh.

 

He was _not_ that mulish.

 

He advised the car that he would likely not be awake. It pinged in acknowledgement, and the steering wheel turned on its own as the car’s antigrav whirred and lifted off, turning to follow the cracked road.

 

Hanzo did wait until the transport was completely out of sight through the steadily thickening trees and the vines and moss hanging off their branches. Once it had disappeared, he leaned the seat back and shifted until he was as comfortable as he could manage. The hum of the antigrav and the slight whistling sound of the air whooshing past the car turned out to be a welcome source of white noise, lulling him as the outlines and silhouettes of trees and bushes swept past the windows.

 

He _almost_ managed to sleep before he thought of Genji again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only two days late this time! I can partially blame a power outage for that, but still! Only two days! I'm improving! Expect the next update by the end of the month at the latest!
> 
> Zenyatta, Zenyatta, Zenyatta. He is difficult to write, he is hard to characterize. I'm not the least bit spiritual myself, so I feel a bit nervous trying to write him, especially from the POV of someone as cynical as Hanzo.
> 
> And now Hanzo is finally, **finally** in India! WHOO!
> 
> Lastly, [Nimpnawak](http://nimpnawakproduction.tumblr.com/) has drawn [this stupendous _comic_ of the pivotal scene in Chapter 7!!!](http://nimpnawakproduction.tumblr.com/post/163332661957/afterdrop-by-claroquequiza-a-super-good-fic-that) I've added it to the summary of Chapter 7 as well, but I want to make sure everyone sees it, it is wonderful work! Thank you so much!!!
> 
> And, as always, thank you for reading! Your readership is an enormous source of comfort, and I greatly appreciate it! Thank you very, very much!
> 
> Edit (03-08-2017): _Afterdrop_ has gone over 1,000 kudos!! Thank you all so, SO much for your support, it is absolutely amazing of you all!!!


	11. Heat

The heat in the Kurnool District was simply astounding.

 

Even to its residents. Hanzo had apparently begun this mission in the midst of the first major heatwave in almost thirty years, since the beginning of the Omnic Crisis, in point of fact. The major news networks kept interviewing climatologists that were, rathering annoyingly, gushing over the heatwave as an indication that the climate was rebounding from the NOx and fine particulate smoke that had lingered in the stratosphere after the Crisis. The heat was apparently something to be thankful for, a sign of a return to normalcy.

 

The populace was reacting in a remarkably cavalier manner to this sentiment. “ _Shubha vēḍi!_ ” they were saying to each other as a greeting instead of the “ _shubha dhinaṅ_ ” or “ _namaskārām_ ” or “ _vellostaanu_ ” the comm’s phrasebook recommended. No matter the time of day, it was “ _Shubha vēḍi!_ ”

 

“Good heat!”

 

“ _Shubha vēḍi_ , Mr. Sakaguchi!” called out Uppalapati over the noise of the busy pedestrian street. “How are you today? Have you melted yet?”

 

Hanzo shook his head wryly as he wiped the sweat off his brow. “ _Atsui desu ne?_ ” he replied as he approached Uppalapati’s tea stand. He could only smile and shake his head at the young man's quizzical look.

 

The stand was a small space enclosed on three sides with barely enough room for even Uppalapati himself, much less the electric burners and the large open pots that held various amounts of frothy milk and brewing tea. It stood off to the side of a small grouping of chairs and tables set up on a raised patio, all under a sturdy awning that was nominally to provide shelter from torrential rains--the monsoon was still going strong even in October. Now it was valued far more for its shade, as the group of youths lounging as close as possible could attest as they kept clear of the slanted rays of sunlight trying to peek under the eaves of the awning.

 

By the time Hanzo got to the tiny counter, Uppalapati had already mixed the spiced tea and milk by straining them through what looked for all the world like a windsock. Now he was frothing it up even more by pouring the beverage from one glass into another with deft movements while holding them as far apart as his arms would allow--he was putting on a bit of a show for a customer who was becoming something of a regular. Hanzo watched him show off with a slight smile. Uppalapati was young, in his early 20’s perhaps, and his showboating, his sparkling inky eyes, and bright smile invited questions and commentary, which made Hanzo’s job all the easier. He had already gleaned much about the layout and general atmosphere of the district from him, and all for the small price of some light conversation.

 

“What happened the first time you got distracted?” he asked as Uppalapati placed Hanzo’s glass on the counter and nonchalantly tipped the glass in his hand backwards to fill it in a long, thin, creamy brown stream as he accepted Hanzo’s bank card.

 

“Hm? What? Distracted?” he hummed as he processed the payment. “Never happened, no matter what my mother will tell you.”

 

“What would she tell me?” Hanzo eyed the foam as it threatened to spill over the rim of the glass, but, as always, Uppalapati cut off the stream with a flourish before it could.

 

“She will tell you about a boy who tried to impress a pretty Vishkar agent,” he laughed, his teeth flashing. “Back before he knew Vishkar are never impressed. He fumbled when she didn’t smile and got a, ehm, what are they called? _Lavaṅgālu_ , the stuff that looks like a wizard’s staff, you know? A _that_ -flavoured burn down his leg. She was not impressed before. You know how impressed she was after?”

 

“Humph. From what I have seen, you lost nothing that day,” Hanzo observed as he gingerly took the almost-too-full glass in hand.

 

“No, I did not!” Uppalapati declared. He tapped his hand on the counter after he handed Hanzo back his card. “I probably saved this old tea stand of ours. If that pretty Vishkar agent thought we were worth anything, they might swallow us whole. I see them walking up and down the street, looking for new shops. First one goes in, and if one goes out, the shop stays. If one goes in, then three go in, the shop goes with them.”

 

Hanzo raised his eyebrows. “Really? They do that often?”

 

He shrugged. “Not often in Tartur, but my friend says he sees them often in Mandlem, on the other side of the Commons,” Uppalapati waved his hand towards the north, in the direction of the great city park that bordered Tartur. “But if business is slow there, they come here, to offer their ‘help’,”  he finished with a scowl. “A promotion, some call it.”

 

“But not you?”

 

Uppalapati let a grin smooth away his frown. “They don’t smile enough in the Inner Ring.” Then he flipped a lock of curly black hair off his forehead. “But they are certainly pretty enough!” Hanzo snorted and rolled his eyes in reply, prompting another laugh from Uppalapati. He thanked him for the chai and sipped it as he made his way to one of the tables in the shade of the awning.

 

He would never have thought before this mission that any hot beverage would be worth drinking in heat like this--especially since he was stuck wearing long sleeves--but that was before he discovered chai. The tea itself was deeply appreciated for its caffeine, of course, but Hanzo would have expected the heat to drive him off even if the milk did not. However, the spicy interplay of black pepper, cloves, and ginger with the sweet milk and bitter tea was proving to be almost addictive.

 

A few of the youths stared at him curiously from where they sat on the cracked sidewalk beyond the edge of the raised patio--the shade was free, but the patio was for customers only--as he sat and withdrew his comm from his baggy pants. He nodded at them with a small smile, and they began whispering among themselves. He shook his head and began typing away on the comm, seemingly paying them no mind as he sipped at his chai.

 

But he was already working his jaw, clicking his molars firmly together between sips and wiping at his brow.

 

Dah dah dah, dah dit.

 

The Moth in his ear activated with a soft beep in his ear. He took a longer sip as he waited for it to finish powering on.

 

Dah dit, dah.

 

A burst of static, and then--

 

“Default radius. Eight targets acquired: six Urdu, two Telugu.” Hanzo glanced at the tea stand. Uppalapati was talking animatedly with another customer. The Moth continued. “Distance proximity mode. Target Urdu One.”

 

The mechanical, emotionless voice was replaced by a much more natural one, though it was stilted with odd pauses here and there, and the grammar did not resolve until the person in question provided a bit more context for the translator to work with.

 

“--you he is Chinese think?” A pause. “I do not know, but if he Chinese is, he us can teach--” A pause. “I don’t know, but if he’s Chinese, do you think he’ll teach us?” Another pause. “Maybe! You should ask him!” Pause. “No! You do it! No, you!”

 

Hanzo worked his jaw. Dah dit, dah. “Target Urdu Two,” murmured the Moth.

 

“--scary is. Nobody him would ever want to bother. You a year older are, your responsibility is!”

 

Hanzo could not help but grimace slightly at the clunky English. Both Urdu and Telugu were primarily Subject-Object-Verb languages and the Moth thus had trouble translating partial or out-of-context phrases into SVO languages, especially when it had just switched to a new target. If Overwatch did not use English as their working language, he might have had better luck translating both languages into Japanese instead, since it, too, was technically SOV. Translation was a tricky thing, though, so there might have been some other feature of the three languages that made them difficult to convert into each other.

 

It did not help that the Moth was constantly having to deal with a dozen other languages as well. At times it was nearly burning Hanzo’s ear off.

 

He cycled through the youths’ conversations, just to make sure none of them were taking an undue amount attention in him. He liked this tea stand, and it would be a shame to abandon it: it was close to his homebase, Uppalapati’s English was excellent, it was a welcome reprieve from the Inner Ring, and most importantly, the chai was good. Hanzo had attempted to cut down on his time in public by making it himself in the tiny kitchenette his homebase afforded, but the final product had been--pungent. It was far better getting it from the street venders, and besides, there was value in establishing enough familiarity with a neighborhood for its occupants to feed him information.

 

It was a narrow line to walk, though. There was familiarity and there was becoming a lightning rod of attention. Hanzo was not _too_ distinctive in his civilian clothes, his tattoo covered and his hair gathered in a discreet bun instead of the spiky ponytail, but he did not fit in easily either--most of the foreigners in the Kurnool District tended to live and work closer to the Inner Ring. Tartur was a bit too far out of the way for most of them. Instead, it was more of a magnet for Indians moving in from other areas of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and the rest of the country.

 

When Uppalapati’s cheerful voice erupted out of the Moth, Hanzo switched it to its more basic function as an earpiece with a casual poke. He cast a subtle glance around to make sure no one was in a position to look over his shoulder before he minimized the random book he had been “browsing” and brought up some of his notes to update them with today’s observations, lean as they were until Uppalapati’s unwitting tip. He had been afraid that that night was going to leave too much room for introspection, but now that he knew about Mandlem he could hopefully occupy himself with one last attempt to find where all the Vishkar agents went when they disappeared.

 

When they _all_ disappeared, even the agents manning their fronts.

 

It had been a striking pattern, one that was almost amateurishly easy to spot. It had taken only two weeks to realize that a certain subset of establishments in the Inner Ring, ranging from supermarkets to clubs to As You Like It, were shuttering their doors almost as one. The excuses for the closures varied--sports events seemed to be the favored explanation as a nation of a billion people did not ever lack for pivotal matches of one kind or another--but their almost choreographed nature was impossible to miss. Hanzo had been able to find eight fronts by himself merely by wandering around the Inner Ring when he found As You Like It closed with an apologetic sign on its doors.

 

He had forwarded the names and locations of the closed businesses to the cowboy, and he to Winston and Athena. Together they not only confirmed the synchroneity of the closures from various sources but found at least two dozen more fronts with identical patterns of closures. Winston had been ecstatic to find so many all at once.

 

He had been just as disappointed when it all came to nothing.

 

A stray ray of deep orange sunlight spilled across the screen of his comm, a farewell gleam from the sun as it sank into a gathering cloudbank racing in over the distant skyscrapers of Nandikotkur in the west. Another storm was approaching. The rain was welcome for its own sake, but it was unfortunate that nearly all the storms thus far had come at night when they did little to alleviate the daytime heat. All they seemed to do was add yet more moisture to the muggy humidity that lay over the entire district like an immense damp towel.

 

Hanzo had had real concerns over whether his heart could tolerate these conditions during the first week of this mission. He had never drunk so much water in his life.

 

Hanzo was unprepared when stabbing, cramping pain shot through his legs and feet.

 

He could not prevent a momentary grimace, but he did avoid jerking or twitching from the hot sensation. He casually stretched his legs out under the table, but he knew his long gone calves would not respond to the motion. He sighed. It seemed even a couple minutes’ idleness was too long.

 

He drained the last of the chai and wiped his brow once more as he stood to return his glass and head back to his homebase. Walking would be a little difficult as his brain tried to sort between the limbs he had lost and the limbs he had now, but it seemed to be the best, albeit insufficient, method to dampen the pain.

 

“Thank you, Mr. Uppalapati,” he murmured as he handed the glass over.

 

“Call me Venkata,” he said with a _wink_ as he took it _._ “It is easier to pronounce.”

 

Ah, a distraction.

 

Hanzo’s mouth fell open for a moment, affronted. “You mean to say you do not appreciate my efforts to learn your tongue?”

 

Uppalapati’s smile quickly disappeared. He looked panicked. “N-no, I just--you--”

 

Hanzo held his gaze for three uncomfortable seconds, ignoring the waves of cramplike sensations racing up and down his prosthetics. A particularly loathsome knot settled in the nonexistent arch of his left foot.

 

Then he laughed.

 

“I apologize, _Venkata_. I am teasing,” he soothed as he folded his brawny arms on the counter and leaned against it with a lopsided smile. “I realize I have been slaughtering your name all this time. Thank you for enduring my poor--” he licked his lips, “--linguistic ability.”

 

Uppalapati stared at his lips for a beat before he recovered with a short cough of a laugh. “You--! It is not fair to call you names you don’t understand. That is the _only_ reason I will not name you as you deserve!” he declared, his smile returning in full force. Hanzo could not see it very well from his dark skin tone and the gathering gloom of the stormy evening, but all the same it was obvious poor Uppalapati was blushing rather fiercely.

 

Hanzo permitted himself a small grin as the pain in his legs subsided a little under the simple pleasure of enticing an enticing man. “I shall apply myself to my lessons, then,” he said, “so we may fairly _tease_ each other.” Uppalapati blinked and the flush in his cheeks deepened.

 

Feeling that his legs were steadying underneath him and that the game had progressed as far as he could allow, Hanzo stepped back. “ _Shubha vēḍi_ , Venkata,” he called over his shoulder as he set off. “ _Dhanyavaadhamulu._ ” He heard an uncharacteristically soft answer from Uppalapati, too soft to be understood.

 

He sighed wistfully. If he was only here on his own business--

 

Hanzo strolled through the crowd, stepping carefully as his body readjusted to what was instead of what had been. Uppalapati’s tea stand was on a side street that led off the plaza that had been Tartur’s marketplace when it had been a town of only 3,000. As the city had grown over the past forty years and been absorbed into the suburbs around the Campus, the streets of the former town center were pedestrianized, transforming them into a district of cafés and open storefronts that was forever crowded almost shoulder-to-shoulder. The smell of chai mixed with the scents of chakna, biryani, and haleem pouring out of the cafés to join the perfume and cologne worn by the crowd, all magnified in Hanzo’s nostrils by the thick humidity.

 

Even as packed as it already was, more people and Omnics were pouring into the street from the surrounding five- and six-story apartment buildings that characterized the city centre of Tartur. The drab workwear of workers returning home was slowly being overtaken by a tide of riotous color as Tartur’s inhabitants headed out for a night on the town. Many were dressed similarly to the young people in the clubs back home in Japan, but it never failed to surprise and gratify Hanzo to see so many young men and women and Omnics dressed in more traditional Indian garb. The glittering _sari_ , _langa voni,_ and _angarkha_ were a beautiful sight, especially after what he had seen in the Inner Ring.

 

The streets by themselves were also far more colorful than in the Inner Ring. The tide of revelers only added to the sea of bright and varied hues of the signs and marquees written in Telugu, Urdu, and Devanagari scripts. Hanzo could not stop shaking his head to see so many languages and scripts on display--and not a single one foreign to this nation. It was such a strange concept that one did not have to go to a specific quarter or neighborhood to see such diverse cultures living side-by-side--that this was merely a microcosm of India as a whole, and not a particularly representative one at that. There were hundreds more languages out there in this country. It was staggering to a citizen of a country of only two.

 

The proprietors of the cafés and stores were now preparing to shelter the late night crowds from the storm with practiced aplomb, unfurling folding roofs to turn their patios into verandas and opening up umbrellas over the streetside tables that sat outside many of the cafés and tea stands. One of the features of the storms here that most surprised Hanzo was the relative lack of wind despite the downpours--he was used to seeing that amount of rain only during typhoons, though. Perhaps that explained why it seemed so odd that people would often wait out a sudden intense cloudburst by enjoying a small meal at one of those tables under an umbrella.

 

Hanzo, on the other hand, did not even attempt to avoid the rain. He had always liked rainstorms and had no aversion to getting wet in this heat. He was sweating so much here and the humidity was so thick and sticky that he constantly felt as though he had just stepped out of the shower anyway.

 

The sky darkened threateningly in the short time he walked, but soon enough the light being thrown off from the hardlight constructs of the Satellite Campus and Inner Ring would halt the darkness.

 

He arrived at the apartment building before the sheets of rain began to fall, though. The building was a fairly new construction, built to house the terrific population explosion that had engulfed the fields and farms that once dominated the Kurnool District before the Satellite Campus had set up shop. It was a solid enough building, better than many of the others that had been thrown up haphazardly to house the people pouring in, but it was nothing compared to the resplendent hardlight skyscrapers that defined the cities that crowded right around the Campus itself, designed and provided by Vishkar.

 

Hanzo was thankful he did not have to live in one of those, however. Even without the data Winston had provided him in the mission profile, he would have immediately distrusted the gleaming streets of the Inner Ring.

 

He entered the small, dimly lit foyer and headed straight for the elevator. The doors slid open as he approached. Hanzo smiled and nodded slightly as eight Omnics stepped out. They were--his neighbors, he supposed, his temporary neighbors, from across the hall. All of them wore city maintenance uniforms, along with a mix of the standard issue faceplates, some with glowing blue eyes, others with the slanting lines that now reminded Hanzo uncomfortably of the Omnic monk. One of these stopped in front of him as the other filed out into the street. Her name was Anushka, and she was something of a floor captain or warden, though she was merely “in charge” of her apartment. Leadership was necessary, though--her apartment housed no fewer than eighteen Omnic residents, though it was a single bedroom identical to Hanzo’s.

 

“Mr. Sakaguchi! Good evening,” she exclaimed a little breathlessly, which was odd coming from an artificial being. Hanzo fought to keep from frowning. As well as having the same faceplate as the Omnic nun from the village, Anushka rather unfortunately shared the exact same voice. “Please forgive me, but do you happen to know anything about solar panels? Or electric wiring?”

 

“Ah--” said Hanzo uncertainly, quickly weighing his options. He had told Anushka his cover story of being a tech entrepreneur--it was a stretch, but not a ludicrous one for her to think he might have experience in wiring. Satisfied that she was not fishing for signs of hidden motives, he said, “I do, in point of fact. Why--?”

 

“Oh, if you could help, then, we would all appreciate it very much,” Anushka interrupted, clapping her hands together in supplication. The pain in Hanzo’s legs began to flare again. “We’re apparently annoying Mrs. Bhatia with our power consumption. It seems that some of the solar panels on the roof haven’t been working, so the brownouts were affecting everyone in the building today. It shouldn’t matter since hardly anyone is home,” she said darkly, “but Mrs. Bhatia is always looking for ways to harass us.”

 

Hanzo nodded in understanding. Anushka was very open and communicative, and had sought out Hanzo to welcome him to the building almost as soon as he arrived. It had taken some time for her to succeed, however--Hanzo’s sleeping and working schedule were at odds with her own--but she had managed to catch him a couple of weeks ago as he was leaving the apartment, taking the opportunity to extend her welcome and introduce him to all seventeen of her roommates. She had also taken the time to inform him of her ongoing feud with the superintendent, which apparently had been triggered by the news of the fighting around the Siberia Omnium.

 

Mrs. Bhatia, a formidable, stout woman in her forties, had been a small child during the Crisis--in many places around the world, that alone would adequately explain her soured perception of Omnics. In India, however, Mrs. Bhatia was in a surprisingly small minority--it was unusual to find anti-Omnic sentiment here, and Anushka was vocal in her frustration at her and her companions’ misfortune. The brownouts could hardly be blamed on _them_ , however. Another constant refrain of the newscasts during the heatwave was encouraging people to limit their usage of air conditioning--which the populace was, by and large, flatly ignoring.

 

The establishment of the Satellite Campus and subsequent population boom had come before more efficient photovoltaic roofing was widely available, so while every square centimeter of roof was covered in old-style solar panels, it was not quite enough to sate the demand, especially at night. The problem was exacerbated by the presence of the Satellite Campus and Utopaea itself downriver. The Campus had been placed here because Vishkar had received permission to build the Somasila Dam and Reservoir on the Krishna River. Hydroelectric power had, at the time, been the only source of electricity powerful enough and reliable enough for the hardlight constructions that now lined the shores of the reservoir. Utopaea was situated on the shore of the Nagarjuna Sagar Reservoir for similar reasons as the Campus, but instead of building that particular dam, Vishkar had bought up the hydroelectric production of nearly the entire Krishna. All that power now went exclusively to the hardlight cities Vishkar built to house the masses fleeing the famines of the Crisis, leaving the more traditionally-built communities surrounding them wanting.

 

It was a sticky subject, socially and politically. The national power grid was not yet robust enough for the district to import enough electricity from elsewhere in the country, and there was much general dissatisfaction with both Vishkar and the authorities for the situation, especially now that fusion power was taking off. It was a bit of a mystery, actually, why Vishkar was not itself leading the charge into fusion plant technology--Hanzo had heard grumblings about that sore subject dozens of times in the street and in the newscasts. There was a sense that fusion power was being ignored even as it was lighting up the rest of the world--Mexico, for example, was making waves with boasts of becoming the first country in the world to run entirely on fusion energy, beating even the tiny nations that could have accomplished this with a single plant. Why could Vishkar, and India as a whole, not do the same?

 

But none of that was Hanzo’s concern. Right now, a small project might help calm the throbbing aches running up and down his legs.

 

“I would be happy to take a look, but I do not have the tools or supplies for such a project.”

 

“Oh, we do, in the apartment,” replied Anushka. “Rana pays her portion of the rent by helping maintain the panels, but she’s on a religious retreat at the moment. Mrs. Bhatia is angry about _that_ , too, by the way,” she added with a scoff. “Ramya can give you her tools--she’s still charging in the apartment. If you wouldn’t mind, that is?” she asked, suddenly fretful.

 

“Not at all, but I better see if I can do anything before the rain starts.”

 

“Oh, yes, the rain!” she exclaimed, clapping a skeletal hand to her faceplate with a short _clang_. “Maybe you shouldn’t, you might get electrocuted! Rana can shake that off, but you--”

 

Hanzo raised a hand to stop her agonizing. “I assure you, if I cannot do anything without placing myself at risk, I will simply return the tools to Ramya.”

 

She nodded slowly. “Okay. As long as you’re careful!”

 

He reassured her again as he pressed the button for the elevator and stepped in. She promised to alert Ramya through the mesh network the Omnics shared and thanked him profusely until she was cut off by the closing doors.

 

Hanzo sighed and leaned back against the wall, shifting his weight to stretch one “calf”, then the other. In the past, his phantom pain had responded well to taking off his prosthetics and massaging his stumps, but recently--since this mission began--nothing seemed to help much. Massage, visualizing his legs and feet relaxing, pain medication--all failed.

 

It did not help that the phantom pain was almost certainly tied to the knowledge of his brother’s suffering. This current pattern had begun in the self-guided car as it had picked its way through Nallamala Forest before finding the smoother local streets that encircled the mountains. Hanzo had been on the cusp of sleep before Genji burst into his mind again. After that, though he did not slip as far into his own head as when he burned his hand, he stared at the ceiling of the car for a long, long while as vague shapes swooped by the windows and his mind wound in tight circles over what Genji must have gone through. He had dwelled with particularly intense and dark concentration on his own wretched journey with his prosthetics and how Genji’s own experience must have doubly, triply, unimaginably more wretched.

 

The first electric shot of pain that surged through him then had been enough of a surprise to make him shout and flail. He had sunk into a kind of lucid half-sleep, it seemed, his exhaustion dragging him down into unconsciousness without him realizing until his phantom pain wrenched him back.

 

The night had been very difficult after that.

 

And every night since, really. Inaction seemed to be the primary trigger, so sleep came reluctantly. Hanzo’s utter exhaustion finally rescued him that first night, but he had no such advantage the nights after.

 

He could only be thankful that most of the work he was doing was best done in the afternoons and evenings.

 

Hanzo blinked out of his reverie as the elevator doors opened on his floor. He slowly made his way down the hallway, breathing deep to work through the pain until he was knocking on Anushka’s apartment door. After a few moments, he heard the metallic pitter patter of Omnic feet approach, and he was momentarily thankful that Anushka had gone out of her way to introduce him to her roommates, just so he could meet the 80cm-tall Omnic’s eyes immediately.

 

“Good evening!” Ramya chirped, her blocky chassis bobbing slightly atop her two gangly legs. Ramya was a decommissioned, pacified Slicer, one of only a few thousand to survive the Crisis. She had apparently been part of a batch of prototype Slicers that was given higher intelligence in the closing months of the conflict as Overwatch had closed in on the last of the God AIs and they had become increasingly desperate. As it was, Ramya’s batch was smart enough to surrender when they were cut off from the God AI’s influence instead of running amok as their predecessors had. Now the former war machine, stripped of her laser cannon and armor, was a lumbering, clumsy pair of legs with a box perched on top.

 

But she was friendly and tried her best to be helpful.

 

“I got the toolbox over by the door,” she twittered with pride evident in her squeaky, poorly modulated voice, but then her chassis drooped slightly. “But it is raining already.” The last word was almost drowned out by a booming, rolling roar of thunder that Hanzo could feel in his chest. Ramya “tutted”, a series of musical tones that reminded Hanzo of “Ricky”. He felt a momentary and extremely strange pang in his chest as he looked down at Ramya and thought of Ricky, lying on its side in the abandoned Watchpoint: Niigata. “Thank you,” Ramya continued, “for helping, incorrect recollection of events, for offering to help. If it’s not a trouble, grammatical correction, if it’s no trouble, I can leave them here and when the rain lets up you can come back?”

 

“Of course,” agreed Hanzo. “I may be going out again, however. If the weather clears before I go, I will see what I can do.”

 

“Thank you!” gushed Ramya, the LEDs surrounding her viewing port twinkling. “You are a kind neighbour.”

 

“Not at all,” Hanzo said as he waved off her words. He wished her a quick good night as he stepped across the hall and slipped through the door of his homebase, just as the building shuddered under another peal of thunder.

 

He locked the door behind him and stood stockstill in the darkness, waiting. He thought he heard a soft scuttling noise from the corner of the pitchblack room, but the spyders that patrolled the apartment knew their business well--half the time he only imagined any noise they made.

 

After a few seconds the Moth in his ear chimed, and only then did Hanzo wave his hand in front of the lightswitch. As the lights powered on, he caught a glimpse of the spyder retreating under the cheap sofa that faced a low table that was meant to hold an entertainment system.

 

He sighed a little as he made his way past the kitchenette behind the couch and through the doorless entryway into the tiny bedroom. He switched on the pedestal fan standing alongside his strange _charpai_ bed before he sat heavily on the sleeping surface, wincing, as he always did, at the creaking sound of the cotton fibers. He was always more than half expecting the loosely crisscrossing cords that made up the “mattress” to snap, but they always held firm to the metal frame. When he had first arrived, he was sure that Mrs. Bhatia had skimped on the furnishings and reneged on providing a proper mattress. Much to his surprise, a quick Internet search had revealed the purpose and history of the _charpai_ , and after the first hot, muggy night, he greatly appreciated the genius of the ancient Indian carpenters who had designed a firm surface that allowed some air to circulate under his sweaty back. It was one scant comfort as he kept a watchful eye on the spotty ceiling through the long nights.

 

He stared at the fan for a few moments, feeling the sweat mercifully cool on his scalp and neck before he withdrew his comm from his pocket and tapped at its surface. He glanced over a report from the security subsystem--apparently three people had passed too close to the door for its liking while he was out--and checked the forecast, nodding in satisfaction to see that the rain was expected to continue unabated for several hours. Finally, he pulled up and quickly studied a map of Mandlem for a few minutes, tracing out a few routes and circling a few places that might be of interest.

 

He finished quickly and stood to pace the room in a bid to quiet the phantom pain a little as he reached up to tap the Moth. “Agent McCree,” he muttered as he twisted the map of Mandlem this way and that.

 

As he waited for the cowboy to answer, he reflected on how taxing this mission had been--the heat, the humidity, the phantom pain, the sleepless nights, his failure to track the Vishkar agents, and the upcoming raid that would be operating with a minimal amount of new information due to his failure.

 

It was bizarre to think that speaking with the cowboy was easily the least taxing aspect of this mission.

 

“This is Agent McCree. How’re you doin’, Agent Shimada?”

 

Hanzo wanted to brush off the friendly greeting, but it would not do with Genji listening in. “I am well, Agent McCree. Have you received the scans?”

 

“Sure have, Athena and Winston got through with ‘em an hour ago. You recoverin’ okay?”

 

“I am more or less accustomed to the effects now, as Winston said I would be.”

 

“That’s good.”

 

The mission profile had warned of many things, but its description of Vishkar’s sonic pacification technology had been fairly lacking compared to the real thing. Hanzo had entered the Inner Ring for the first time after spending two ultimately wasted days “recovering” from the flight, and he had had to fight the urge to immediately turn around and flee the cloying sensation that had settled into his mind and bones. He had been drugged before, and entering the Inner Ring reminded him rather vividly of the experience. The sense of artificial wellbeing, so very like the initial buzz of intoxication, was, perhaps, the most striking and disturbing attribute of treading within range of the technology. So, too, was the sensation that if he did not intensely concentrate on where he was and what he was doing, he would fail to recall anything about the time he spent there. The cowboy had seemed just as disturbed by that as Hanzo, calling in Winston to hear Hanzo’s report right then and there. The gorilla had spent some time reassuring them both that, as far as anyone knew, the technology was meant to have a minor tranquilizing effect, not interfere with the formation of new memories. It had brought Hanzo little comfort.

 

Nor was it any comfort to learn that the slight nausea that accompanied leaving the range of the sonic technology was also normal. Vishkar, it seemed, was trying to condition its tenants and residents to associate leaving its developments with discomfort.

 

As the weeks passed, Hanzo had gotten used to this manipulation, more or less. The technology itself was no less disturbing, though.

 

Hanzo and the cowboy had a short discussion about Hanzo’s scouting trip along the edges of the Satellite Campus itself--on the days that Vishkar’s fronts were closed, Hanzo often feigned sightseeing walks, and today he had focused at first on the high security wall that separated the grounds of the Campus from the Inner Ring, looking for more weaknesses and blind spots for the upcoming raid. Later on, he had fulfilled a request from Winston that Hanzo once again ride one of the tour boats that Vishkar provided to show off the Campus’ waterfront to check for changes to the layout or to the hardlight facades that hid the bunkers within from view. Hanzo had played the tourist who recorded everything, taking long videos of the waterfront as the tour boat glided by, the infrared and ultraviolet filters on the comm’s camera catching far more detail than the devices being used by the tourists surrounding him.

 

Hanzo was still not used to how easy the discussion was, by how easy they had all gone during this mission. The cowboy was being as thorough as ever, but where before he would demand exacting detail on Hanzo’s movements and whereabouts throughout the day, now he concentrated on Hanzo’s observations and impressions, as well as plans moving forward, never mentioning geographical and other revealing details over the line.

 

Hanzo attributed it mostly to Genji’s presence and partly to the cowboy’s admission to Agent Tracer that he was tracking Hanzo “down to the meter” regardless. _That_ had confirmed that the cowboy had been demanding Hanzo report such useless details to discomfit him--that he had abandoned that tactic for now was, by far, the greatest improvement about these daily reports.

 

“Alrighty then, looks like nothing substantial’s changed. Plan’ll still be the same. I’ll let you know ‘bout any adjustments, o’course.” Hanzo rolled his eyes. The cowboy had been inserting many reassurances like that for Genji’s benefit. “Anything else you wanna report, Agent Shimada?” the cowboy asked.

 

“Yes, I have a small possible lead into Vishkar activity nearby.”

 

“Oh really? That’s good! What’ve you got?”

 

Hanzo grimaced. The cowboy’s style had been marked with overexuberance that the situation never merited as of late. “Nothing substantial, merely an anecdote that Vishkar engages in small business recruitment in the city of Mandlem. They may be expanding their efforts to make more of the suburbs dependent on services in the Inner Ring.”

 

“Hmm,” hummed the cowboy into the commlink. “Dependin’ on how far along they are, they might be settin’ up another node there soon. Good thing we got this goin’ when we did, otherwise you mighta gotten compromised.”

 

“I will try to confirm their presence tonight.”

 

The cowboy was silent for a few seconds. “Yeah, might as well. Might stumble onto something that can help us. Take a spyder along in case you find a node--dunno if a node in the middle of setup would be more or less vulnerable, t’be honest, but if it’s more vulnerable you could get all the info we need before the carrier even leaves the runway.”

 

“Understood.” Hanzo hesitated for a second, but before he could ask, the cowboy answered his question.

 

“The team config’s been finalized, by the by. Me, Lúcio, D. Va, Soldier: 76, Mei, and you.” Hanzo suppressed a sigh of relief, but he knitted his eyebrows together at the unfamiliar name. “Mei’s, uh--Mei’s ‘new’,” the cowboy said, forestalling Hanzo’s question a second time. “She’s another old member of Overwatch, but she’s not from the combat divisions.” Hanzo raised an eyebrow at that. “Now, no one got into Overwatch without combat experience of some kind, and the same goes for Mei. She came t’Overwatch from the PLA, but she hasn’ been in combat for a while. She’s training her ass off t’come along on this mission as our backup hacker, but she’ll be pretty green. So me, 76, and you will be keepin’ a close eye on her.”

 

“In what way?”

 

“Mainly watchin’ her back. She hasn’ had t’keep her six clear for a long time. She tends t’focus too much on what’s ahead is all.”

 

Hanzo nodded, then grimaced. Would he ever break that habit? Nobody could see him nod on an audio call. “Understood,” he said. “I assume I have not been sent her file because of the mission?”

 

“You got it. We’ll get it to ya on the transport afterwards, along with Agent Zenyatta’s.”

 

“Very well.” A twinge ran up one leg as he paced.

 

“You doin’ okay, Agent Shimada? Any ills, big or small, gettin’ you down?”

 

“No, none.”

 

“Dunno how you managed to skirt around that stomach bug. Tracer, 76, and I were laid low by it for almost a _week,_ and you completely sidestepped it. What’s yer secret?”

 

This was another new feature of these reports. The cowboy was constantly dropping little tidbits of “news” about daily life in Gibraltar. It was hard to fathom why, exactly--Hanzo’s best theory was that the cowboy meant to subtly emphasize Hanzo’s isolation under the cover of “charming anecdotes” about the team. Why else would he tell Hanzo about who won that week’s gaming night tournament (Agent D. Va, always), the progress on the base’s new herb garden (a side-project of Agent Torbjörn), or the results of some new recipe in the communal kitchen (Dr. Ziegler’s Emmental Apple Rösti had been a success)? None of this information benefitted the mission, or was even guaranteed to be true, but the cowboy included it all the same--he had to have a purpose.

 

Responding to these tidbits was now the most difficult part of the reports. Compared to the cowboy’s former style, it was still a great improvement, but Hanzo struggled to find acceptable replies all the same. Now, at a loss of what the cowboy wanted him to say, he settled on, “I could not tell you.”

 

“Well, you did something right, that’s for sure. Alright, Agent Shimada, if that’s it, I’ll leave you t’take a look around. If you find anything, let me know. You gonna go on one last stakeout?”

 

“I believe so.” The lack of information he had gathered on Vishkar was disheartening, to say the least. If Hanzo had been successful, there might not have been a need to meet up with the cowboy and the rest of Overwatch for a dangerous raid. If there was a chance to obtain any information that would reduce the uncertainties associated with it, Hanzo would take it.

 

“Well, good luck, then. Looks like we’ll be in the air early tomorrow afternoon, ETA around 0400 local. You can report in around the usual time.”

 

“Understood,” replied Hanzo.

 

“Talk to ya later.”

 

The commlink went dead, and Hanzo sighed as he pocketed the comm and broke out of his pacing to grab a glass of water from the kitchenette, grabbing the fan in one hand as he went. He was loathe to be without it for even a moment, even it meant purchasing an extension cord that could reach every corner of the apartment. He filled a large glass from the pitcher he kept in the refrigerator and, glass in one hand and fan in the other, wandered past the sofa to one of the two windows in the main living area.

 

There was very little to see. This apartment was on the back of the building, with a view of what was more or less a wide alleyway that the buildings on his block clustered around, making a U-shape with the alley open at only one end. The apartment was on the top floor and corner to the blank rear wall of an office building, thus Hanzo had that many fewer neighbors to concern him. The office building was vacant, which Hanzo had personally made sure of as soon as he was lucid enough after arriving. Across the alley was the back of another apartment building, ablaze with lights as its residents returned home for the night. Thankfully, there were no balconies, which from what Hanzo had seen of the other apartment buildings in Tartur was fairly unusual. Winston had chosen well.

 

It was still raining, but the alley was well-illuminated, even now in the middle of the monsoon storm after sunset. Blue-white-grey light filtered down from above, reflecting off the low cloudbank, occasionally outshone by flashes of lightning. The sheets of rain was enough to slightly soften the outlines of the windows across the way. The gutters five stories below were swollen into torrents. Petrichor seeped into the room through gaps in the windowframe--the same gaps allowed the window to vibrate from another booming crash of thunder.

 

Hanzo would normally be more than satisfied with this kind of scenery, but the phantom pain was not. Usually around this time there was a fair number of people loitering in the shelter of the alley, especially the children living in the surrounding buildings. Hanzo would watch them play as he paced between the two windows, their antics providing an interesting window into both the peculiarities and universalities of growing up.

 

Many of their games were familiar, especially the football matches with backpacks or jackets acting as goalposts--the elementary school-aged children in Hanamura had to make due with similar improvised fields before middle school. Hanzo had watched many of those matches from afar, and had even set up a field of his own in one of the courtyards of the castle when Genji--

 

But other games were completely unfamiliar, even inscrutable. One game in particular seemed to be extremely popular but Hanzo could not fathom its rules, though it seemed fun enough. The children would draw out a long rectangular pitch divided into six sections with chalk, with the middle two sections two or three times bigger than the others. Two teams would gather at either end and send one teammate to challenge the other team for--something. It was hard to tell what the goal was, because at times the other team would run away from the lone invader, other times they would attack them. Most curiously of all, if neither the invader nor the defenders did anything substantial after a few seconds, the invader would retreat back to their own team’s side even if no one was close to them. Hanzo had tried to time how long it took, but it varied wildly, even for the same player.

 

It was a strange game.

 

But tonight, there was only two groups of people in the alley--or possibly only two people total. It was hard to tell how many sat under the bright umbrellas. Everyone else was wisely sitting out the storm indoors.

 

Hanzo had never been as wise.

 

Wiping his mouth, he circled around the sofa to double-check the lock on the door before he retreated to the kitchenette. He placed the glass by the sink and then headed for the bathroom, shedding his shirt as he went. He left the fan by the door and stepped into the small room. It was very basic, without even a shower stall. The showerhead stood in the middle of a circular rack that hung from the ceiling from metal wires, the entire floor sloping to a drain in the corner. Primitive by the standards of his youth, but worlds better than the streams and creeks he had used on multiple occasions. Even so, the heat here meant he would live in this room if he could--but he had tasks to complete.

 

He sat under the showerhead, detached his prosthetics, and reach up to turn the faucet on. The cold water tumbled down his back, and he shuddered at how good it felt against his flushed skin even as the muscles in his chest constricted like he had fallen into a frozen pond. He let the water run over him for a minute or two before he adjusted the temperature to lukewarm--yet another piece of advice from the newscasts. He thoroughly scrubbed himself and his prosthetics down, paying particular attention to the waterproof makeup on his face. He finished up with another blast of cold water over his hair, leaving the bun at the base of his neck sopping wet.

 

He shut off the water and hauled himself across the floor to the towel hanging off a rack on the wall, pulling it down and wiping at the droplets scattered across his skin. He examined the juxtaposition of tan and untanned skin meeting in a clear line across his wrists with bemusement--what was the term in English? A farmer’s tan? He had a similar line encircling his neck and collarbone. It had been a long time since he had been in the sun long enough to acquire one. Usually he only spent so much time outdoors in the winter, and often after night had fallen.

 

He wiped off his prosthetics and buckled them on, hissing at the feeling of the electrodes meeting the nerve endings. Even that had been painful as of late. He stood after they calibrated themselves and approached the mirror, opening the medicine cabinet below to grab the makeup case below. He worked quickly, lessening the definition of his cheekbones and changing the shape of his nose, making it appear flatter and less prominent.

 

Facial recognition technology was technically illegal in India due to a right to privacy ruling by the Supreme Court in the late 2010s, but companies like Vishkar were constantly trying to push the boundaries. The usual trick to sidestep the privacy laws was an old one--using facial recognition, Vishkar and others would create a unique ID in the company database. They would then track that person by the ID rather than by their identity--or so they would claim. In reality, it was an open question how much effort an individual company made to identify their customers--Vishkar almost certainly did, which made assassins like Hanzo very nervous. Luckily, there was a sizeable movement worldwide that sought to preserve their privacy, and plenty of products to cater to them. Makeup was by far the easiest way to confuse facial recognition, but one had to be careful; many facial recognition cameras used both infrared light and visible light, ostensibly as a security measure and to pierce clothing and masks. It was therefore necessary to use makeup that had similar effects in both spectrums, as Hanzo did.

 

He finished quickly and exited the bathroom, scooping up his clothing and the fan as he went to dress in the bedroom, pausing to grab a spray bottle off the floor and mist a thin layer of hydrophobic sealant over both his prosthetics and the cello case. He dressed in dark clothing and hoisted the cello case onto his back before draping his rain poncho over everything.

 

He treaded into the main living area, rolling his shoulders back to position the case more comfortably, and opened the door to a small supply or linen closet. There, on a charging plate meant for a wireless vacuum cleaner or somesuch, sat the security subsystem in its metallic suitcase. At its side sat a single spyder, its cordlike legs retracted into its triangular carapace. Hanzo keyed his code into the keypad on the subsystem’s case.

 

“Code accepted,” came the muffled voice of the subsystem, a passable imitation of Athena’s smooth contralto.

 

“I need to take a spyder out for recon,” said Hanzo.

 

“Acknowledged. I advise you take Spyder Four. It is one-quarter charged. If you take one of the others, its battery may fail and open a hole in the security perimeter.”

 

“Very well,” Hanzo agreed. The spyder at the subsystem’s side came to life, three legs ratcheting out like thin metallic tentacles as it lifted its carapace aloft and stalked away, disappearing into the bathroom. Hanzo pursed his lips, but he really should be used to the spyders monitoring him in the shower by now. Soon, Spyder Four came scuttling back, laying itself down at Hanzo’s side and withdrawing its legs back into its body. Hanzo took hold of it gingerly. The movements of the spyders were--not exactly spiderlike, or crablike, or like any other animal, really. Maybe that was why he found them slightly disturbing. Nevertheless, he slipped the spyder into his pocket.

 

“Command protocols for Spyder Four have been transferred to your comm. Good luck, agent.”

 

Hanzo rolled his eyes, but he could not help but thank the subsystem as he closed the door to the closet.

 

He wasted little time, making one last round to check each room before he slipped out the door and locked it behind him.

 

He made it out of the building without being stopped by anyone and began the journey to Mandlem, fat raindrops thudding on his head and shoulders. It was less than two kilometers distant over flat ground and Hanzo did not begrudge the weather, so he opted to walk.

 

He left the bustling crowds of Tartur behind as he cut through the Commons, a large park that separated the two cities. It was dominated by a large, shallow pond that used to help feed the farmland that had disappeared under the urban development. Now it was hemmed in by a walkway that was sheltered by mango and jacaranda trees. Their branches and leaves were sodden with water that dripped down on him far more gently than the rain out in the open.

 

It was pleasant, walking alongside the lake, separated from the dark, rippling water by an intricately carved stone balustrade, the way lit by lampposts that were reflected in thousands of starlike points by the droplets clinging to the trees. The phantom pain faded at last while he was in the Commons, listening to the rain falling into lakewater and foliage.

 

It was far less pleasant in Mandlem.

 

Mandlem was no smaller than Tartur, but it was much quieter, much more still, with the seething feeling of a city that was down on its luck in more ways than one. Hanzo could not walk down a single block without finding two or three boarded up businesses. He could not read the Telugu and Urdu storefronts very well, but some of them had clearly been grocery stores and cafés once, with a few boutiques and at least one club mixed in, which would fit the tactics that Vishkar pursued when it sought to expand its influence. Vishkar often bought out and moved such establishments out of communities surrounding its developments, to “encourage” people to use theirs instead. Once the economy was stagnant enough, Vishkar could then offer to revitalize the area--with some key concessions from the city government, of course.

 

Hanzo reached the city centre before long, where he found a few crowds at last, but nothing to compare with Tartur’s. Indeed, the businesses that clung to life here were of decidedly lower quality than in Tartur, which themselves were less “refined” compared to those in the Inner Ring, if one was interested in a more generic, international style.

 

But Vishkar itself was not to be found. In Tartur hardlight constructs could often be found in lobbies, storefronts, and displays, as well as along the busier intersections and motorways in the form of barriers that burst out of nothing to protect pedestrians crossing the road and to help shepherd traffic during rush hour. Here, there was none of even those cursory examples of Vishkar technology in (truly) private hands.

 

There were certainly no Vishkar agents making themselves known here either, but Hanzo kept walking, for hours, past the boarded up storefronts, through the small crowds, breathing in the metaphysical stench of a city that was being slowly bled to death. He made cursory visits to some of the larger office buildings in the city, both occupied and vacant, to look for indications of any activity that seemed odd or out-of-place, but he found nothing more than empty properties and sleep-deprived office workers staring deadeyed out of well-lit windows, unknowingly on full display to passersby.

 

After a while it became clear that the only reason to keep searching was to exhaust himself. When he slept last, he had not woken up again until nearly noon, so it took a long, long time before he felt like he had a chance of sleeping before the phantom pain returned, almost long enough for the twilight to return in the east. The rain did not let up until he was trudging back through the Commons towards Tartur, this time accompanied by little tweets of birdsong as the hardiest avians braved the dredges of the storm to prepare for the dawn.

 

He returned through Tartur as the bulk of the late night clubs and discotheques began to empty, finding himself among throngs of lively drunks and partiers that reminded him uncomfortably of the crowds he used to parse in search of Genji. He distanced himself from those memories by concentrating on the foreign tongues he heard as groups of people randomly and haphazardly joined together in song and slapdash dance parties in the street, some even accompanied by music blaring from wireless speakers that were obviously being pushed beyond their limits in both volume and bass.

 

Tartur was alive and vibrant, for now. Hanzo tipped his head back and looked at the sky. The clouds overhead were thinning, but they still caught the bluewhite glow of the faraway Campus, a constant reminder of Vishkar’s presence just out of sight.

 

He returned to his homebase with no better achievement than his exhaustion, but he was satisfied with that for now. He shrugged off poncho, cello case, and clothing, leaving the spyder to charge next to the subsystem and hanging the poncho from a retractable clothesline in the bathroom. He removed the makeup over the sink, not sparing any glances at himself in the mirror--he knew how haggard he must look--before swallowing a couple pills of ibuprofen, for all the good they had been doing.

 

He circled the sofa a few times, trying to offset the few moments he had stood at the sink before he finally retired to the bedroom, placing the cello case by his bed with lid open and Storm Bow, quiver, Moth, and comm in easy reach. He positioned the fan to blow down on him, sank onto the _charpai,_ and tried his best to empty his mind and breathe out his wakefulness.

 

It was a long and fitful night, but the routine may have started to produce results at last. There was less phantom pain than usual and less bitter self-recrimination that followed him into that uncertain state that was either sleep with dreams of wakefulness or some kind of half-consciousness.

 

Either way, the full light of day, the noise of people in the alley below, and cramps in both spectral feet roused him after some hours had passed. Hanzo was not sure how many, but he deemed them enough.

 

It was time to return to the Inner Ring.

 

The preparation for the Inner Ring was much the same as for Mandlem, with a few extra efforts to appear more professional and stylish. Hanzo limited such efforts mainly to adjusting the tattooed eyeliner with a flourish at the ends more in line with modern trends, brushing some tea tree oil through his hair for a bit of extra shine, and picking slightly flashier clothing as he dressed, a dark carnelian red shirt with offset buttons and subtle, cloudlike swirls in an even deeper carmine trailing across the fabric, over a pair of fine cotton slacks in a complementary midnight blue.

 

Once he was ready, he shut up Storm Bow in its case, fighting the wave of regret at having to leave it behind. The only weapon he could take with him was himself.

 

He pocketed the comm, inserted the Moth into his ear, and descended to the street, nodding in a friendly manner to the few residents still in the building in the late morning. The crowds in the streets were at their lowest ebb at the intense heat of the day, though, like downtown Tokyo or Osaka or Kobe, they never allowed much shoulder room. Hanzo joined the stream of people heading for the nearest Kurnool Metro station, seeing little of note in the crowd or the route beyond a few enticing smells as he was swept past the patrons trying to beat the lunchtime rush in the shade of the café patios.

 

It was a relief to leave the ovenlike street behind as he climbed down the steps into the Metro station, though the distant rumbling of the overworked air conditioning system was always a strangely ominous background noise. He had been lucky thus far and had not been caught in any of the Metro stations or trains during a brownout, but there was still time for it.

 

The ten-kilometer journey towards the Inner Ring was uneventful. The train was full but not crowded, allowing Hanzo to easily keep deceptively idle eyes on the passengers moving in and out of the carriage, watching for any suspicious movements or anyone shadowing him.

 

The metro stations became progressively more modern as they approached the Inner Ring, until Vishkar simply took over completely. Its influence was seen first in simple hardlight sculptures adorning the platforms, but soon the integral, loadbearing structural elements were completely hardlight and the design of the stations themselves was thoroughly Vishkar--simple utilitarianism typical of public transportation was abruptly replaced by more surreal and stylistic forms.

 

Two stations away from the Inner Ring, the “platform” was a series of frosted glass-like lilypads floating in ethereal blue light, each passenger carried to and from the train by their own personal pad.

 

One station away, it was a room temperature facsimile of an Olympic-sized ice-skating rink sandwiched between the tracks, with the floor as slick (or not) as one wanted. Commuters could adjust the friction of the floor with a floating keypad that unobtrusively hovered at their elbow. This station nearly always hosted more children and teenagers than commuters, whizzing around and trusting in the automatic barriers that would discreetly nudge them away if they ventured too close to the tracks.

 

And finally, in Konidela Central Station, the westernmost city in the Inner Ring--

 

The platform was in a saddle-like depression in a “butte”, which the metro tunnels “bored into”, but on either side of the saddle, a reddish brown cliff face dropped away hundreds of meters to the canyon floor, which stretched to the sheer walls of the Noctis Labyrinthus several kilometers distant, except where a gap allowed a view into the Valles Marineris as it began its 4,000km journey around Mars. Hanzo arrived just in time for the shadow of Phobos to pass overheard, momentarily blotting out the much of the weak Sun in the butterscotch sky.

 

Hanzo could not help but look from side to side as the escalator carried him away from the Martian landscape, looking for more details in the lovingly crafted reproduction. It was as close as he was ever going to get to any astronomical object.

 

When he had come here the first time, it was easy to believe that anything following such magnificent demonstrations of Vishkar technology would be disappointing in comparison, and though nothing could really compare with the Red Planet, the Inner Ring held many more marvels.

 

It was like stepping into the future as Hanzo exited the station. When it had designed and built the Inner Ring, Vishkar decided that Deconstructivist and Neo-Futurist architecture would dominate in Konidela. Most of the skyscrapers surrounding the station were masses of regular geometric shapes stacked and stuck onto each other with no visible means of support, with the almost crystalline forms sweeping the eye upwards towards their pinnacles. The others were slightly more traditional but still resembled nested shards of glass climbing ever upward towards the cloudless sky.

 

In front of him was a waypoint for the taxi system--no vehicles of any kind were allowed in the Inner Ring. Those who did not wish to walk simply stepped onto the waypoint’s platform and a vehicle simply grew around them based on the size of their party and their individual needs, whether they were handicapped or wished for a personal entertainment system or wanted to focus on sightseeing, the “taxi” was constructed accordingly. They then joined the orderly mass of vehicles zipping back and forth high in the air--five meters above for local traffic, fifty for the express lanes.

 

But those who chose to walk did not technically have to do so. Ahead of Hanzo was the strange sight of dozens of people standing stockstill as they moved past at one or two meters per second. The only indication of the moving “sidewalk” that took up the entire street was a double yellow line and holographic warning signs in ten languages offering instructions on how to safely enter and exit the sidewalk--otherwise there was zero sense of motion in the ground itself. The people were simply gliding by, some chatting with their companions, others reading their phones and tablets, and more than one person openly gaping at their feet or nervously shuffling as they tried to cope with the odd sensation of so many things moving yet not moving yet _moving_ all at once.

 

One of the highlighted warnings on the signs was for nausea. Hanzo had seen more than one person stumble off the sidewalk greenfaced and distressed. It did not help that the hardlight technology meant that there were no shadows anywhere--every surface, no matter how mundane, gave off a glow that no shadow could contend with unless it was being cast by direct sun. It lent the whole scene the sense of a poorly rendered yet hyperrealistic video game.

 

To Hanzo’s immense relief the sidewalk was no more distressing than a car or train, though it did take him some time to work up enough trust to step out onto it the first five or ten times--though “trust” was probably a poor term, since Vishkar allowed no other alternative. The corporation apparently did not trust people to walk themselves to its satisfaction. The only walking allowed was to change lanes. There were no surface vehicles to contend with, but there were roadway signs all the same, directing people to different lanes depending on their destination and upcoming intersections. Anyone who tried anything else, to hurry along for example, found themselves inexplicably walking or running in place no matter how fast they tried to go.

 

Intersections were terrifying during rush hour because, while the sidewalk had allowed no collisions that Hanzo had seen, it was still disconcerting to see so many people whipping past each other, with most not paying the least amount of attention to their surroundings. Right then there was comparatively little traffic, but Hanzo still had to fight the urge to move out of the way of some young businesswomen who were standing in a loose group. None of them batted an eye as the moving sidewalk’s sorting algorithm decided to take Hanzo right through them at a right angle. One of them nodded at him with a slight amused smile; that was all, even though Hanzo could have knocked four or five of them over had he moved even a few centimeters to either side.

 

If Hanzo were a more generous man, he might have attributed the use of the sonic pacification technology to help the populace contend with its transportation system. The effects of it had begun as soon as the train entered Konidela Central, and he was sure it was probably a great help to many first time visitors--if they did not mind its administration without their knowledge or consent, of course. It was only one of the disturbing elements of the Inner Ring.

 

Another was the absence of Indian culture here. There were subtle references to various styles of Indian architecture in the surrounding buildings and skyscrapers, but nothing to firmly place the scene in any country. The people all wore Western business attire--it was like walking through Kasumigaseki, the home of most of Japan’s national ministries and thus absolutely crawling with bureaucrats.

 

Another still was the utter lack of Omnics. Hanzo could not recall seeing a single one in the Inner Ring. It was highly unusual--India was one of the most Omnic-friendly countries in the world (a sentiment that had spread to neighboring Nepal, which Hanzo suspected explained the existence of a certain monastery there). Omnics from around the world had settled here to take advantage of the Indian public’s tendency to blame the international community for their losses during the Crisis rather than Omnics directly. They were an almost omnipresent feature of the streets of Tartur and Mandlem, and of India as a whole, really--but not in the Inner Ring.

 

After a few hundred meters, Hanzo moved over to the exit lane. He stepped smoothly off the moving sidewalk onto the small receiving area for one of the larger shopping centers in both Konidela and the Inner Ring as a whole. It was a massive tiered structure, but one could easily pass it by completely because the only sign of its presence was a low wall covered in sleek advertisements for the stores found within--the building itself dove down sixty or seventy meters into the ground, a so-called “earthscraper” or “inverted skyscraper”.

 

It had an open design, the hexagonal tiers of shops and restaurants surrounding the roofless central shaft the ended in a lake covered with lotus flowers in perpetual bloom. A waterfall took up one entire side of the hexagon, the water a thin shimmer at street level but gathering into a respectable torrent as the tiers shrank towards the bottom.

 

The As You Like It Café was located on the highest tier, opposite the waterfall, in a prime position to oversee everything the shopping center had to offer. It had a narrow outdoor terrace, but the bulk of it was indoors, under a wave-like roof that could become clear or opaque depending on the light conditions. Below, the space had a rectangular layout. That was the only thing about the café that never changed.

 

Outside the main entrance was a schedule, with floor plans accompanying each date, that described how the café would look each day. Today the schedule proclaimed it was Seaside Saturday, with “a charming recreation of a beach café overlooking the Arabian Sea!”

 

The café’s technology meant it was a highly versatile space, often hosting local musicians for small concerts, showings of popular TV shows and movies, and even a fashion show once--complete with runway and raised platform seating--but so far in Hanzo’s experience, three-quarters of As You Like It’s atmosphere depended on its patrons reading the schedule before they entered. Today the interior looked like any other café despite the florid description, with small tables that could fit two or four clustered around a few larger tables in the middle of the café, all in orderly rows that led back towards the counter, display cases, and prep area in the rear of the shop.

 

Then again, that was part of the point. The hardlight construction _should_ be indistinguishable from the “real thing”, and for the most part it was--except for that persistent, ever-present bluish glow and tint that shone through every surface no matter its color or purported material, from the “metal” chairs to the “wooden” tables to the “glass” displays. It all became rather--tiring--if Hanzo spent too much time in the Inner Ring. He had no idea how its residents could stand it--he could only assume that sleeping masks were a necessity here.

 

But he had only just arrived, and he could stand it for a few hours at least before his eyes became strained and a headache threatened to bloom. No, the main danger was his phantom pains, but there was nothing he could do about them--he would simply have to trust in the ibuprofen and his own stamina until he was satisfied he was not going to learn anything of importance before Overwatch arrived.

 

He had beaten the midday rush. There was no line in front of the counter. The barista graced him with a practiced smile as she brushed absently at the edges of her _hijab_ , which was a brilliant royal purple to match the apron that overlay the simple black garb that made up the rest of her uniform. “Welcome back, sir!” she greeted. “What may I serve you today?” Hanzo recognized her, too--her designation was Charlie Charlie. He smiled wide in return and ordered a plate of _modak_ dumplings of various flavors, along with a large cup of chai. The barista entered his order into a holographic screen with mechanical precision. “Will that be all today, sir?”

 

“For now,” allowed Hanzo. He had attempted to ingratiate himself to the staff by buying new products for every hour he stayed, for all the good it had done.

 

“Very well, sir. We’ll bring it out to you,” she said with a nod, her fixed smile already sliding over to a customer who had come up behind him. He wandered away, briefly weighing the advantages of sitting in a more central location versus sitting close to the glass wall that closed off the café from the terrace so the outside glare could discourage people from looking at him. He chose the central location since the large tables near the middle of the café were still unoccupied--the lower-ranking Vishkar employees that frequented the shop tended to come in groups, as opposed to the higher-ranking ones who came singly or in pairs. Until any of them came, though, he would be listening in on the café staff.

 

He settled at a table for two that was pressed up against the wall and pulled out his comm. He clicked his molars together--dah dah dah, dah dit--as he brought up the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences’ app. He logged in and browsed that day’s problems as he continued to click away, hard and firm for _dah_ , lighter and gentler for _dit_.

 

“Search mode: designated targets,” the Moth soon spoke into his ear. “Three targets acquired: Charlie Charlie, Charlie Echo, Charlie Foxtrot.” Hanzo’s fingers hovered over the screen as he digested the information. Charlie Charlie was managing that day, then, and the extra workers for the lunchtime rush had not arrived yet. He glanced at the counter--Charlie Charlie was still on register, greeting a small group of businesspeople, so she would probably not be giving up any Vishkar secrets today. He clicked out the next command to the Moth--dah dit dah dit, dit dit dah dit--and Charlie Foxtrot’s bubbly voice started pouring into his ear.

 

He listened to her describe her night to Charlie Echo as they worked on unloading the day’s deliveries in the back of the café--apparently she had had to cancel plans with friends for “work”--presumably the work that had been whisking away all Vishkar agents. It could not have been the café, since it was closed yesterday.

 

Charlie Foxtrot had actually provided tantalizing clues with her chatter many times before; she was studying computer science at the Kurnool Polytechnic Institute, and had let slip more than once that she spent only part of her working time here in the café. What exactly she did and where she did it remained a mystery. Hanzo had followed her and other café employees to their residences, but every single one of them resided in Vishkar apartment complexes. Vishkar security was legendary, even at the civilian consumer level, and there was no guarantee that employees of Vishkar counted as mere civilian consumers. Hanzo had tried to catch any of them leaving for any other locations, but they seemed to go almost nowhere but the café and school, with only occasional trips to other, invariably mundane destinations. Charlie Foxtrot had complained about this lack of freetime several times as well--implying that it was both recent and unusual.

 

Hanzo kept listening to Charlie Foxtrot with half an ear as she greeted one of her coworkers, Charlie Mike, arriving for the lunch hour rush. Charlie Echo dropped off his mass-produced _modak_ and frothless chai in the meantime. He waited until he returned behind the counter before he selected a problem to work on for the RIMS, the mathematics department of Kyoto University. When constant vigilance was not strictly required, Hanzo often used the crowdsourcing app to pass the time and put all those side classes he took in university to use--he had zero use for his master’s in business these days, anyway. He rather annoyingly had to create a new account every time he switched locations, which meant he had to pass the battery of qualification tests the app demanded users pass before they were allowed to work on actual equations and algorithms, but Hanzo was more than qualified. Today he decided to work on a set of noncommutative geometric equations which the app’s community of amateur mathematicians hoped would help constrain the properties of branes, specifically D-branes. Hanzo was fairly uninterested in the main goal, though--what matter was occupying himself during yet another forced stint of endless hours of waiting.

 

The rest of the day’s workers soon arrived, barely beating the lunch crowd that began to form in a long line in front of the register. Charlie Foxtrot and Charlie Echo was joined by their good friend Charlie Juliet. Hanzo switched to her as soon as she arrived, but she had had a far more successful night, it seemed, and he was soon hurriedly clicking at the Moth to switch to Charlie Echo before she went into too much detail--if it was an effort to discomfit eavesdroppers, he could find out from Charlie Echo’s unguarded responses rather than from Charlie Juliet’s purple prose.

 

More tempting targets presented themselves, anyway: architechs.

 

Two main groups of them arrived nearly simultaneously, forcing Hanzo to scramble to make a decision. One group was made up of a large number of lower-ranking architechs who were more likely to unreservedly gossip. The other was a pair of higher ranking supervisors, who were more likely to have incriminating information.

 

All of them likely worked together, but Indian work customs made a point of preserving the distinction of rank. The supervisors might work with their subordinates, but would never deign to share a table with them. All the better for Hanzo--they had made it far easier to catalogue them in a separate category in the Moth, allowing him to more easily monitor them.

 

Victor Golf and Victor Hotel ordered first (Charlie Charlie subtly but noticeably stiffened when she caught sight of them), and wandered over to a table on the other side of the café but almost directly across from Hanzo. As their subordinates were still ordering, Hanzo decided to focus on them for the time being. He clicked his way to multi-target mode, despite the additional computational load on the Moth. He could only be thankful the Moth was not having to translate at the same time--everything in the Inner Ring, all the signage, all the business, all the conversations, was in English. It was among the harshest differences between the Vishkar developments and the surrounding cities--that, and the absence of Omnics.

 

Hanzo could already feel the Moth begin to heat in his ear canal as he bit into a dumpling.

 

He soon discovered the risk of a burn was well worth it.

 

“Fuck,” groused Victor Golf as she sat heavily on her chair, the unforgiving hardlight likely jostling her spine, “as soon as all this is over, I’m applying for vacation time. What a nightmare.”

 

Victor Hotel groaned as he sat. “How’s your subgroup doing? Mine’s been sleeping on their feet since the day before yesterday”

 

“Walking corpses, the lot of them,” said Victor Golf darkly. “I practically have to bend whips to keep them going. And now we’re going to be up all night as guard dogs--”

 

The architech paused as their subordinates started filtering pass. Hanzo continued typing out the equations, his fingers pausing only to take a sip of underwhelming chai, even as he waited with bated breath to see if the supervisors would be spooked into silence.

 

The whole group of underlings was seated at the café’s largest table before either of them said anything more.

 

“Where will you be during the brownout?”

 

“Station C. You?”

 

“Damn. Station F, by the docks.”

 

“Bad luck.”

 

“Mmm.”

 

They were interrupted again. Hanzo risked a look to see Charlie Echo dropping off their pastries and tea before retreating with a bit more deference than he had shown Hanzo. Victor Golf watched him go with a thoughtful look on her face. “You think it was worth bringing in the riffraff?”

 

Victor Hotel snorted. “Of course not. You know how many errors my subgroup had to correct in the new code?”

 

“Four hundred thirty-nine, along with the three hundred eighty-two that mine had to deal with.” Victor Hotel chuckled with a sardonic look on his face. Hanzo looked back down at his comm. “You know the biggest joke? They took the productivity trackers offline, ‘to free up the processors’.”

 

“No!” groaned Victor Hotel.

 

“ _Yes._ So next time we do a reconfig, they’ll have the same bright idea and lump us all together with the interns and novices again because none of us will be able to point at the trackers and say _fuck that._ ”

 

“Ugh,” was Victor Hotel’s only reply. The disagreeable sounds of chewing and swallowing followed. Hanzo pursed his lips slightly before he caught himself and returned his face to a look of pleasant enjoyment as he ate another dumpling. His mind, however, was kicking into overdrive, centering on the terms _brownout_ and _reconfig_ . What could they mean? There _were_ no brownouts in the Inner Ring or in the Satellite Campus; the Somasila Dam saw to that. And why was Vishkar using its precious and highly skilled architechs as guard dogs?

 

He checked the time. The lunch hour had barely begun--plenty of time for the supervisors to continue their foolishly open discussion, if they would only cooperate. He spared a glance at the underling architechs sitting together at the largest table, closer to him. They did indeed look much like the zombies in the old classic movies he used to watch when he was young. None of them had dark circles under their eyes or pale faces, but it was all in the way they moved, frames collapsed against the table or the backs of their chairs, arms moving stiffly and deliberately, food chewed slowly with vacant faces. And they were _not_ drinking tea. Southern India was known for its coffee culture, but the Kurnool District was along a cultural demarcation line of sorts, and was thus inordinately proud to drink _tea_ and never _coffee_. Every single one of them had chosen coffee.

 

“Symmetra!”

 

Hanzo was almost startled by Victor Hotel’s sudden loud shout, but he avoided looking up from his comm, which was all that mattered. He stubbornly refused to even glance at them, but he was furiously clicking his jaw, trying to keep from making any errors in his haste.

 

“Searching for new proximity target,” reported the Moth, uncomfortably hot in his ear. “No target found. Searching. Searching.”

 

“Welcome back! How was Brazil?”

 

“Searching,” repeated the Moth, to Hanzo’s frustration.

 

“Good, good. Did Mr. Korpal come back with you?”

 

“Target acquired.”

 

“--likely remain there until the stockbrokers’ meeting in Marseille.”

 

“I see. Well, I wish he had sent you back earlier. Your assistance would have been invaluable. Will you be joining us tonight?”

 

“I do not believe we should discuss this in a public area.”

 

Hanzo cursed internally as Victor Golf laughed. “Of course not. My apologies, Symmetra. Would you care to join us? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you take your lunch out and about.”

 

“Thank you, but I must decline. I am here partially at Unitra’s request. She is awaiting my return.”

 

“A shame, but we won’t keep you.”

 

“Thank you. Farewell.”

 

Only then did Hanzo risk another look. Victor Golf and Victor Hotel were watching a woman about Hanzo’s height walk away. She was dressed in an impeccable gold-and-purple Vishkar uniform, a stark difference from the white-and-gold Victors Golf and Hotel and their subordinates wore. Hanzo had yet to see a uniform like it, in point of fact--the metallic gold portions on her flanks, arms, and across her collarbone glimmered in the half-light the roof allowed in, contrasting nicely with the thick, purple fabric. Her jetblack hair was gathered in a rather large bun right where Hanzo was accustomed to keep his own ponytail, and when she turned slightly to address Charlie Charlie, Hanzo saw to his slight bemusement that she, too, allowed a few strands of bangs to trail down the right side of her oval face.

 

Perhaps he needed to change up his style a little. He looked down at his comm quickly.

 

The two supervisors waited a long while before they spoke again, likely until “Symmetra” received her order and left. Then Victor Hotel spoke with a sneering voice, “Good of him to send some help.”

 

Victor Golf snorted. “She’s better than nothing. He’s keeping the rest of his division downriver despite the security risk. He’s probably just trying to keep the CEO off his back.”

 

“Humph. You’d think that keeping all our hard work safe would be the best way to do that, but apparently not.”

 

“Apparently not. You ready?”

 

Victor Hotel sighed. “I suppose. I don’t suppose there’ll be any time for a nap before tonight?”

 

“Of course not, that would improve our productivity too much.”

 

They continued to quip at each other as they stood and made their way to the exit. Hanzo followed their conversation while Charlie Echo walked up to their table and “deleted” it, dishes and all, allowing the crumbs and other organic leftovers from their meal to fall to the floor, which he dutifully vacuumed up before the table and chairs rematerialized. The supervisors, meanwhile, did not drop any more interesting information before they left the Moth’s range.

 

Their underlings were still slowly making their way through their own meal, talking together in low voices. Hanzo eyed them warily as he thought through everything he had heard and seen. This was, by far, the most information he had gathered about what Vishkar was up to, even if it did not add up to anything comprehensive--though it seemed, in typical inconvenient fashion, that it had arrived on the cusp of the event itself, whatever it was. Hanzo was about as inclined to believe that it was a ruse to smoke out eavesdroppers, and that the underlings were now watching for someone to leap up and swiftly exit--or wait a few discreet minutes before calmly making their way out--so they could follow and detain the wouldbe corporate spy.

 

The first option was far more foolish, so Hanzo employed a version of the second, sipping at his chai as he snacked on the last of the dumplings and finished up an equation--and then started on another. He usually spent four hours here, at least. What better way to identify himself if he was up and out the door in less than a half-hour?

 

He checked the time again and could not prevent a frown. He needed to report all this to the cowboy if he managed to make it back to his homebase, but the cowboy and his team would be taking off soon. If what he overheard was pertinent to the raid, it could end up being the Niigata warehouse all over again, last minute and poorly planned. Hanzo suppressed a wave of foreboding that trailed on that particular thought’s tail, thinking instead of whether he even should return to his homebase--he should return to a secure place as soon as possible, but if the whole conversation _was_ bait for some sort of trap, he should not return directly, if at all. He would have to take pains to shake anyone tailing him, and that would take up potentially precious time.

 

Well. He had an hour at least to ponder the problem. An hour past when the last of the underlings left, more likely. He might as well listen in on them until then, in case they dropped something to confirm the words of their supervisors.

 

“New designation for the additional target?” asked the Moth when he began clicking his jaw. Hanzo considered for a moment, before mentally shrugging. Dit dit dit dah, dit dit. “New designation: Victor India accepted.”

 

The next two hours passed slowly. The subordinate architechs had nothing more interesting to talk about than the half-life of caffeine in the human body, plus a general expectation of being awake all night, again. They lazed about at their table for as long as they could, squeezing as much out of their lunch hour as possible. They finally left in a single, downcast group.

 

Hanzo, in the meantime, found himself too preoccupied to be of much use to the RIMS, thinking almost obsessively of the two supervisors and the possible implications of their conversation, but he made little headway with the information he had.

 

He could not even take comfort in any food as he waited--he might tip off the café staff with his odd behavior, but he would not give them an opportunity to drug him any more than the sonic pacification technology already was. He found himself wishing that the tranquilization effect was a bit more effective, really--he hoped that the information would be worth the perturbation he was undergoing.

 

At last he turned off the comm’s screen and stood. Charlie Echo had long since clocked out, to be replaced by the mousy, shy, and tiny Charlie Papa, who made her way through the remains of the lunch hour crowd to clean up after him as he strolled out. He almost expected her to be his tail, unobtrusive as she was, but none of the café staff seemed to pay him the slightest bit of attention.

 

The journey back to the Metro and the Metro itself were similarly devoid of any obvious Vishkar shadows, but Hanzo took no chances. He did not return to Konidela Central Station, opting instead for the next station down to give himself time to subtly parse the crowd around him. He had no eyes for the beauty of Nagatur Station, a recreation of Mexico’s famed Giant Crystal Cave. The 12-meter-long selenite columns were no distraction from possible Vishkar agents. He hardly noticed the harsh discomfort of going out of range of the sonic pacification technology when the train arrived and he traveled south.

 

He did not get off in Tartur. Instead, he allowed the train to carry him into Vipanagandla, a smaller city to the south that liked to boast of being the largest non-Vishkar planned community in the district. It showed, in the wide streets in a regular radial pattern, with plenty of open space for Hanzo to spot any followers along with dozens of alleyways connecting the radial spokes for him to duck down again and again until even he was almost turned around--almost.

 

It was another two hours before he was hurrying as nonchalantly as possible through the streets of Tartur once again. His paranoia did not allow him to approach the apartment building directly, of course--a few more doublebacks and misdirects were necessary before he padded into the lobby of the building. He met no one he knew as he approached the apartment. He entered, locking the door and waiting for the spyders to finish verifying his identity. As soon as the Moth beeped in his ear he made a quick sweep of the apartment before whipping out the comm and checking the subsystem’s report for any attempted breaches and finding none. At last, he tapped at the Moth and muttered “Agent McCree.” As he waited for the call to connect, he swiped at the comm and initiated a download of the Moth’s data into the subsystem--it boasted far more powerful encryption than the comm.

 

It took a few minutes, with only the occasional low tone in his ear to assure him that the call was still trying to get through, before the cowboy finally answered.

 

“Ag--” He did not even complete the first syllable before it was interrupted by a yawn. “McCree here, Shi--Agent Shimada?” There was a scuffling noise, and the cowboy’s voice, thick with sleep and thicker still with his drawl, became much clearer. “You’re a little early, everything--¡Jesús, José, y María! What happened? Someone tailin’ you?”

 

Hanzo rolled his eyes. The GPS tracking data must be a sight. “I do not believe so, but I wished to be cautious. I may have obtained some relevant data.”

 

“How relevant?” the cowboy asked. Then a loud exhalation. “Relevant enough t’try t’throw everyone and anyone off your tail. You get it on the Moth?”

 

“Yes, the subsystem--” Hanzo checked the status bar on his comm, “--has finished downloading it.”

 

“Alright, I’ll get Athena t’take a look at it. What did you get?”

 

“Two Vishkar supervisors were discussing what may have been the reason behind the requisition of personnel from their fronts. They specifically mentioned a ‘brownout’ and a ‘reconfig’.” Hanzo quickly summarized their conversation. The cowboy did not interrupt, waiting for Hanzo to finish before saying anything.

 

“‘Brownout’, ‘reconfig’, and some kind of ‘all hands on deck’ project,” he muttered. “Hup, there’s Athena.” Almost simultaneously, Hanzo’s comm chimed. A transcript of the whole conversation popped up, with certain terms and sentences highlighted. Hanzo scanned it quickly, but the cowboy seemed to have a split-second headstart. “And ‘stations’--stations. Hmm. Those could be the bunkers of the Campus’ facilities.”

 

Hanzo blinked. For all of Vishkar’s posturing about the benefits and versatility of hardlight construction, there remained, literally and figuratively, some core limitations. The plumbing had to eventually connect to the municipal supply, for example, and the power had to come from somewhere. So, hidden within most Vishkar developments, was the “bunker”, the lone permanent physical aspect that would remain in the event of a catastrophic power failure that Vishkar swore would never happen, mainly because the bunker was dedicated to enormous banks of photonic-electric batteries. Usually.

 

The cowboy cleared his throat. “Lemme get our local Vishkar infiltration expert in on this.”

 

“Your--” began Hanzo, narrowing his eyes at the comm, but the cowboy was already yelling at someone.

 

“Lúcio! Hey, _Lúcio!_ You awake yet? _Lúcio!_ ” Hanzo could dimly hear an answer from a youthful tenor that made the cowboy chuckle. “Rise and shine, me and Ar--ahem, me and Agent Shimada got a few questions for ya!”

 

The other voice slowly approached, “Yeah, okay, anything you need, but you gotta work on your wakeup calls, man.”

 

“Will do,” the cowboy said with zero sincerity. “Take a look at this, will ya? Agent Shimada overheard it all from a couple mid-level Vishkar. Any of it mean anything?”

 

There was silence for almost a minute. Then--

 

“Hoooo, a brownout! Jackpot! They’re powering down the _entire Campus_ to reconfigure everything!”

 

“Everything?”

 

“Everything! They call it a ‘brownout’ because it affects everything but the central servers! They switch everything off, transfer the new code into the servers, and switch it back on! Until they do, they’ll be leaving the bunkers completely exposed!”

 

“ _Shit._ ” The cowboy’s curse was sharp, tone dismayed.

 

“W-wha--?” stuttered the tenor in surprise.

 

“You will not arrive until it is too late,” said Hanzo, scowling as he began to pace. “This--reconfiguration is tonight. How substantial are the changes likely to be?”

 

“Uhhhh--” The tenor was suddenly subdued. “They’ll probably be changing, uh. Everything. Probably. You know how they’ll completely redesign a website or something?”

 

Hanzo nodded, completely distracted from the absurdity of it.

 

Almost everything he had done, nearly all the intelligence he had gathered, would be useless, obsolete, by the time Overwatch arrived. He would have to start again, almost from scratch.

 

A wave of bitter frustration welled up in his chest. He would have to start _again,_ from _scratch._ How many times would his efforts be completely wasted?

 

Unless--

 

“You mentioned that the bunkers will be exposed?”

 

There was a short silence before the tenor, Lúcio, realized the question was directed at him. “Uh, yeah!”

 

“How exposed?”

 

“Uh. Completely. Like, when they had a brownout in Río, the bunker was literally the only part that stayed.”

 

“And these ‘guard dogs’ of Vishkar’s?”

 

“ _Pfft,_ ” snorted Agent Lúcio dismissively. “They’re there for show. I got past them no problem.”

 

“Do they know you got past them ‘no problem’?” Hanzo asked sharply.

 

“Well, yeah, but--” Hanzo cut him off with an annoyed huff. If they knew they had been infiltrated during a ‘brownout’ before, they would expect to be infiltrated again and adjust their defenses accordingly.

 

“What methods did you use to breach their defenses?”

 

“Ha! ‘Methods’. All I did was get some buddies of mine to make some noise off on one side of the bunker, and all the Vishkar bunched up around it. Then I just ro-o-o-olled in, grabbed the Amplifier, and ro-o-o-olled out. Easy peasy.”

 

Hanzo gave a thin-lipped smile to himself. This ‘Lúcio’ was revealing much, whether he realized it or not. Hanzo had wondered what had triggered Overwatch’s interest in Vishkar, as well as where they had obtained some of the more intimate details about the company, especially the bunker schematics that seemed to be identical to the scans he had taken of the Satellite Campus’s bunkers--to their exteriors, at any rate. He had assumed that it had something to do with the incident in Brazil, since this Agent Lúcio was from Rio de Janeiro, and he appeared to be correct.

 

If Agent Lúcio had relied on an overt, obvious distraction, there was still a good chance Vishkar would not expect or prepare for a more--subtle approach.

 

“I have a proposal, Agent McCree.”

 

“Oh yeah?” the cowboy said, wariness clear.

 

“Yes. I believe I can take advantage of the brownout to infiltrate one of the bunkers and obtain the data Overwatch requires.”

 

“Naw. No!” said the cowboy as Agent Lúcio whooped in delight. “That ain’ happenin’. It’s too risky. The Campus is way more important t’Vishkar than the center Lúcio here’s talkin’ about.”

 

“If the hardlight constructions were intact, I would not consider it. However--these bunkers. I have studied their schematics, and I have infiltrated comparable facilities before.”

 

“Now listen here, Agent Shimada, if you’re captured--”

 

“Time is of the essence, Agent McCree. If you are opposed, I would like to appeal to Agent Winston.”

 

There was silence for a long beat.

 

“Athena. Get Winston on the line.”

 

“I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” rumbled the deep bass of the gorilla, slightly startling Hanzo. “I just got on, Athena’s been feeding me the data, but I couldn’t find my comm under all these jars--under all these papers, I mean. Anyway! What’s your plan, Mis--Agent Shimada?”

 

Hanzo blinked, but he forced himself to recover. Just breathe, he told himself, with a deep intake of air. It’s just like with Mother, when the police or rival yakuza gained a momentary upper hand. She would turn to you and ask the same question: what is the plan? Half the time she agreed, and you are still alive to make more plans.

 

“I have been studying the bunker schematics. I assume they are from this Vishkar facility that Agent Lúcio is speaking of?” Winston grunted an affirmative. “I noted that the entrances are pressure-plug doors with secondary steel locking mechanisms. Is that correct, Agent Lúcio?”

 

“Yeah! And, fun fact, you can cut through the lock _and_ release the pressure seal if you--”

 

“--correctly aim a laser welding torch,” interrupted Hanzo.

 

“Yeah, exactly! Where did you guys find _this_ guy, I thought I was the only one who knew how to fight dirty!”

 

The cowboy grunted.

 

“And you have a torch with you?” Winston asked with an edge to his voice.

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo simply. “Along with urban infiltration camouflage.” The cowboy sucked in a breath, but Hanzo barreled on. “Once inside, assuming the layout is similar, I can access the central servers within ten minutes, fifteen if I encounter hostiles. I have six spyders with me; they can work in concert to cut down the transfer time. How long do you estimate that would take, Athena?”

 

“Assuming a download of five terabytes and standard industrial encryption, approximately three minutes, fifty seconds, Agent Shimada.”

 

“Thank you. Fifteen minutes to get to the servers, five minutes to access and download the data, and fifteen minutes to get out. I have spent far more than thirty-five minutes in secure facilities without being detected. The main unknowns are the security perimeter and the number of hostiles in the bunker itself. If the security perimeter is impenetrable, I will abort. If there are too many hostiles in the bunker, I will abort. But I believe I have a reasonable chance of success if those two factors are favorable.” Hanzo briefly recounted his argument to himself, looking for any points that might be too weak, but on such a short time table he could offer no better reassurances, so he fell silent.

 

Winston cleared his throat. “Thank you, Agent Shimada. Agent McCree, your objections?”

 

The cowboy was quiet for a few moments. “As Agent Shimada says, the security perimeter and the number of Vishkar agents in the bunker are complete unknowns. He could easily get overwhelmed. Assuming he’s not taken out back and shot, which is likely given Vishkar’s history, we should consider the implications if he’s captured.”

 

Hanzo’s hands clenched, one into a fist, one on the comm, causing a rainbow of color to erupt on the screen under the pressure of his thumb.

 

“I will not betray Overwatch,” he said in an icy voice.

 

“I know.”

 

Silence. For almost three breaths. Then the cowboy coughed. “I’m not sayin’ that. Nobody’d say--uh. I’m not sayin’ that. I’m just--look, Overwatch is illegal. We have no standing with anyone, anywhere. If you get captured, you’ll have no recourse. You’ll just be some mercenary hired by a rival company t’steal Vishkar’s secrets. If they don’ shoot you, they’ll prosecute you for all you got. _We_ won’ be able t’help you--the whole reason for this raid was t’start gettin’ cozy with India so we’d have a friend on the Security Council. If you get caught and we get nothin’ out of it, we won’ have anything t’work with. And if-- _if_ \--it somehow gets out that you’re workin’ with Overwatch, we’ll be set back even farther than we are now.”

 

A rapid tapping noise came over the commlink, like someone was drumming their fingers. It was likely Winston, since he soon spoke. “Agent Shimada? Would you like to respond?”

 

Hanzo was not used to this sort of debate, at least, not anymore. It had been a long time since someone else was listening to him _and_ others. He had forgotten how invested he became, how he _needed_ to win. He tamped down his frustration, and breathed. “I cannot guarantee,” he ground out, “that I will not be captured or killed, but I can guarantee that if I am, I will be the _only_ one. Agent McCree’s objections can be easily applied to the raid we were planning, only with six agents at risk instead of one. You were expecting resistance, you were expecting life-threatening conditions, and the consequences for failure were exactly the same. The only difference now is that I will have no backup, but I am accustomed to none. I will take every precaution, as I have always done.” Hanzo hesitated, but drove on. “And Vishkar is welcome to try to contain me.”

 

That got a _laugh._ Not just one, but two laughs, one from Agent Lúcio and one from the cowboy of all people.

 

“I ain’ worried about _that,_ Agent Shimada,” he drawled. “I’m more worried about who’ll come lookin’ for ya once the news breaks of Shimada Hanzo’s exact location.”

 

Hanzo shrugged. “They have found me before. I am still here.” And _they_ are _not._

 

Nobody spoke for a few moments. Then Winston sighed. “It’s either this,” he said heavily, “or we start over. Your performance has been exemplary, Agent Shimada, but every day you’re there is another opportunity for Vishkar to stumble across you. Plus, who knows what this reconfig entails--it almost certainly includes security upgrades of some kind, and we’re already playing catchup after five years on the sidelines. Your mission is a go. Conference with Agent Lúcio and Agent McCree to take all possible precautions.”

 

A surge of relief tore through Hanzo, and he was about to say something--to thank the gorilla, he supposed, or to acknowledge his orders, but the cowboy spoke up first.

 

“Winston--if we’re gonna do this, then we need a backup plan.”

 

“Well--yeah, that’d be a good thing,” said Winston slowly.

 

“If Agent Shimada’s captured by Vishkar, his only chance will be if _we_ get him out again--no offence meant. If we get the opportunity, we gotta try--nobody gets left behind.” Winston made a small noise at that, but Hanzo could only stare at his comm, dumbstruck. “The people I got with me here ain’ equipped or experienced with rescue missions, and even if they were it’ll probably take stealth t’pull it off--the only reason we’re doin’ this with Agent Shimada is because he’s stealthy. Outta the five of us, I’m the only one who knows how to be quiet and quick. We should turn around and come back t’pick up Genji.”

 

The color drained out of Hanzo’s face, and the screen of his comm threatened to crack under his thumb. The cowboy was rushing his words now; he was almost incomprehensible.

 

“He’s the only other Blackwatch agent, and you _know_ he and I are perfect for a rescue mission. The rest can be a distraction or whatever, but he and I are the only ones with a decent chance of springin’ Agent Shimada. I dunno if you remember, Winston, but durin’ that hostage crisis in Sydney--”

 

“I agree, McCree,” interrupted Winston.

 

Hanzo’s heart sank into the pit of his stomach. “Wait--” he blurted. Then, furious with himself, he swallowed back his panic and forced himself to say in an even tone, “If you attempt to rescue me, then there is no point in sending a single agent to reduce the risk.”

 

“That isn’t the way we think at Overwatch, Agent Shimada,” said Winston firmly. “Sending a team to retreive data is optional. Sending a team to rescue one of our own is not. In fact, that will be the only condition under which your mission can go forward--our best chance to get you out of Vishkar custody would be if they transfer you to Utopaea, which they’d do sooner rather than later. McCree, wake Lena and have her turn you around--it’ll delay you by a few hours, but Agent Shimada’s mission would’ve finished before you got there anyhow. I won’t give final clearance to proceed until the rescue team is in the air. Is that clear?”

 

The cowboy and Agent Lúcio agreed right away. It took Hanzo a moment, an awfully telling moment, but he gave a wordless, hummed assent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're going to see your brother again, Hanzo! Isn't that exciting?!?!
> 
> Almost eleven days late. I'm sorry for missing my self-imposed deadline so badly, but if nothing else, my goal of publishing once a month goads me to write whether I meet it or not! I am sorry for the delay though, and all for a bunch of worldbuilding and setup--but next chapter. _NEXT CHAPTER..._
> 
> An unexpected part of the writing process for this chapter included getting ridiculously infatuated with Ramya, who has lived quite the life. She is a possible mascot??? For this fic now??? Here are some Facts about Ramya if you're interested:
> 
> [Ramya Facts #1](http://claroquequiza.tumblr.com/post/164996791164/sleepysak-replied-to-your-post)  
> [Ramya Facts #2](http://claroquequiza.tumblr.com/post/164998046234/redbeanfilling-replied-to-your-post)  
> [Ramya Facts #3](http://claroquequiza.tumblr.com/post/164998870454/bluandorange-replied-to-your-post-sleepysak)  
> [Ramya Facts #4](http://claroquequiza.tumblr.com/post/165024998669/i-would-probably-die-for-ramya-1010-did-nothing)  
> And then [SleepySak](http://sleepysak.tumblr.com/) drew [some doodles](http://sleepysak.tumblr.com/post/165001802972/pen-pressure-wasnt-working-but-i-have-ms-paint), and I almost died when I saw the ostrich costume. Thank you so much!!!
> 
> Thanks to [couldbedauntless](https://archiveofourown.org/users/couldbedauntless/pseuds/couldbedauntless) for pointing out the Japanese parallel to _Shubha vēḍi_!! I made up that phrase (hopefully it makes sense in Telugu), but I had no idea Japan had beaten me to the punch until she told me!!
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading!!!


	12. Brownout

There were no shadows in the Inner Ring. One might assume--in fact, many hundreds of thousands might assume--that that meant safety, that everything was laid bare, that there was nowhere to hide.

 

They likely did not know how much the eye is drawn to contrast and how overenthusiastic the brain is when extrapolating its surroundings from what it already knew. It had to do so, in fact: a great evolutionary blunder resulted in a blindspot in each eye that was much easier to ignore than to correct, and the brain applies the same solution to any multitude of problems it encounters, such as finding a dark figure in the dark--or a light figure in the light.

 

And indeed, nobody had looked twice, not even once, during the long journey through the Inner Ring.

 

The streets below and behind him were quiet even for the odd silence of the Inner Ring’s moving sidewalks and hardlight vehicles. This vantage point was in a commerce quarter that was conveniently empty after business hours, and even more conveniently close to the Central Administration and Research and Development modules of the Campus.

 

They rose above him now, two immense structures that took no trouble to hide their hardlight nature--their surfaces glowed with pearly blue light. The CA was a visually striking upside-down, wide, tiered pyramid that plunged in four great steps down into the earth. R&D, on the other hand, was a mess of curling, bulbous shapes modeled after the essential molecules of life, with long chains of carbohydrates and lipids acting as the supporting columns of the curly, complex shapes of amino acids and proteins that formed the floors and working spaces of the complex, all guarded with the spiral forms of DNA and RNA rising as towers along the perimeter.

 

There was some grandiose and symbolic meaning to which specific molecules Vishkar had chosen for the design, something to do with the molecules most often found in the human brain according to the proud boastings Hanzo had heard on the tour boat, but Hanzo was no biologist. Perhaps Dr. Ziegler or the Omnic monk would have been more interested to know.

 

As he waited for Vishkar to make their move in the non-shadows five stories above the street, he did find himself hoping that whatever changes Vishkar was making, they would leave the designs of the buildings themselves intact. There was value in age, something that permeated the stone and brick and steel of a structure to make it more than the sum of its parts. If Vishkar were more--romantic, perhaps--they would realize that they could evoke a purer, more ethereal meaning of age and time with their hardlight constructions. There was no substance to their creations, nothing but form itself, and thus none of the gradual wearing that plagued material structures that so often claimed to be hundreds or thousands of years old yet had, in reality, been eroded away and had bits and pieces chipped off and replaced until nothing remained of the original--except the _form._

 

But Vishkar’s philosophy seemed to be rooted in the brief and the temporary. They had ironically patterned the CA pyramid after an upside-down copy of the Pyramid of the Sun of Teotihuacán, one of the few creations of humankind that _could_ endure almost unchanged for millennia. But _this_ great pyramid would be disappearing before even two scant decades had elapsed. Unworthy, really, of an organization of such otherwise lofty goals from a land where civilization itself was born six thousand years prior.

 

Hanzo grimaced under his mask, shaking his head free from his thoughts.

 

He really was a sentimental fool when he wished to distract himself.

 

But now the time had come to concentrate.

 

As the last of the twilight faded and Venus shone low and alone on the horizon, Vishkar began to take action. The grounds of the Campus had been starkly empty since Hanzo had arrived, with only the occasional pair of white-clad employees hurrying between modules. That, by itself, would have been indicative of something strange going on if Hanzo had happened upon it with no other context, but nothing would have prepared him for the dozens of employees that suddenly marched out of every Vishkar building within sight, the CA, R&D, the faux aquarium that was Public Outreach, the great stupa of Engineering, and so on in both directions towards the docks at each end of the Campus’s thin crescent promontory jutting out into the Somasila Reservoir.

 

All of them wore visors over their eyes, but Hanzo could tell they were scanning both the grounds and the skyline beyond the wall. As the gazes of the small figures below swept over him again and again with no sudden interest or alarm, Hanzo smiled.

 

He spared a glance at his attire--most of the body armor around his chest, torso, and shoulders was steel grey, along with the nanowebbing encasing his arms and prosthetics, while the _hakama_ were a murky green-brown, with bright, electronic-looking stripes of orange zigzagging randomly across everything--all to match the electronic billboard behind him advertising some overenthusiastically caffeinated drink. Not the sort of colors most people expected a burglar to wear, nor the sort of place they expected a burglar to hide, although Hanzo was technically wearing every color possible, really.

 

The urban infiltration camouflage suit was a marvel of technology and among the very few souvenirs he had from his time as _kumichō_ of the Shimada. It had cost more than one hundred million yen, nearly half of which went to bribes alone--at the time the clan commissioned it, it was cutting-edge military technology and it took a lot of persuasion, both physical and monetary, to obtain it. Even so, its utility was limited by the batteries that powered the suit’s various functions, and, old as they were, they were likely to run out even if this infiltration took the minimum amount of time possible. Hanzo would have preferred to arrive here via a route as circuitous as the one he took fleeing As You Like It, but the suit simply would not permit it. It should not matter, though, so long as the suit performed.

 

So far, it seemed that it had. The camouflage nanowebbing had kept up with his surroundings, changing and melding into the background as he had crept and dashed through the backways of Tartur, Mandlem, and finally the Inner Ring, sticking to the loading docks and storm drains and canals that formed the hidden lifeblood of each city. There had been surprisingly little to differentiate the backways of the Inner Ring from its less advanced counterparts other than the slight blue sheen glimmering through the grime that was allowed to gather out of sight and out of mind. There had also been a lack of the kind of businesses Hanzo had sought out during his detour through Mandlem following a sudden stray thought and burst of inspiration.

 

But the camouflage was merely a bonus. Hanzo could avoid being seen even dressed as a centuries-old anachronism when he wished. No, the critical point was avoiding the Inner Ring’s tracking systems, and there was precious little to indicate whether the suit’s jamming signals and infrared conversion had done their job. The few moving sidewalks that Hanzo had encountered during his clandestine journey had not reacted to him and the audio scanners cupped over his ears were successfully blocking the sonic pacification technology, but that was all. They were promising signs, if Hanzo were the type to believe in promising signs, but the real test was yet to come.

 

The Vishkar agents below gradually spread out, taking positions dotted across the grounds of the Campus. He counted the number of agents surrounding the CA and nodded to himself. The cowboy had been correct, it seemed. Vishkar did indeed value it far more than the center Agent Lúcio assaulted; there was three times more agents around the CA alone than there had been guarding the Rio de Janeiro bunker.

 

But to his relieved satisfaction, Agent Lúcio was also correct: Vishkar was betting more on the element of surprise and deterrence to guard its facilities than sheer manpower. Vishkar knew about everyone and everything in the Inner Ring; a listening post or base of operations was impossible to conceal. Nobody knew when the brownout was occurring, so they could not hope to be prepared when the switch was thrown. Finally, there were several dozen guards and Vishkar’s immense reputation to discourage any audacious bystanders tempted to improvise.

 

That much of Vishkar’s strategy had remained unchanged, it seemed; rather typical for a lumbering international megacorporation. No, it would be far easier and cheaper to make minor adjustments to security protocols, such as forbidding personnel from bunching up around any disturbances rather than have to expend resources on fortifying the security perimeter.

 

Soon enough it was time to put this theory to the test.

 

The last of the Vishkar settled in place. There were a few moments of silence and stillness; even the sounds of the crowds in livelier areas of the Inner Ring filtering through the empty streets seemed to still.

 

Hanzo took this calm before the storm as an opportunity to check himself. The thick nanowebbing mask stretched across the lower half of his face, concealing everything under his eyes. The audio scanners fit snugly over his ears. The quiver on his back was secure, the magnetic strip at the bottom holding each arrow firmly in place, the strap tight across his chest. The pouch encircling his waist was holding fast, stuffed full of spyders and batteries. The pieces of a disassembled Storm Bow pressed into his lower back between the pouch and the quiver. The welding torch and EMP grenades were all fastened in place. The sack he had purchased in Mandlem wriggled slightly, but its occupant seemed to have settled tolerably.

 

Finally, the comm was clipped to his belt--but for the first time in ten weeks, it was in stealth mode. Athena had triggered it as soon as the Orca took off in Gibraltar, signaling Hanzo to enter the Inner Ring, secure in the knowledge that it would not generate active signals of any kind except to and from the six spyders when Hanzo keyed in the unlocking code--or the distress code. For the first time since the hunting party, Hanzo was alone.

 

As it should be.

 

It felt natural. It felt _exhilarating_ after being tracked for so long.

 

It was more than enough to completely overpower the pain in his legs despite Genji steadily approaching on the Orca with the rest of Overwatch.

 

A thrum of deep vibration pulsed through the air. The Vishkar employees below stirred. Hanzo tapped a quick succession of signals on his wrist. The audio scanners beeped in response, confirming his instructions.

 

Hanzo breathed in, deep, allowing his smile to smooth away into a neutral expression.

 

_Ignore all distractions._

 

And out. Genji, the heat, the fatigue, everything before and after the battle, all flowed out and drained away, leaving only the target before him.

 

_My aim is true._

 

High above, the looming edges of the great inverted pyramid began to waver and flicker ever so slightly, and the pale blue color began to fade to white. Hanzo dropped into a starting runner’s position, bracing one leg against the base of the billboard behind him.

 

_It is time to act!_

 

With a flash, the CA, R&D, and all the rest of the Vishkar facilities seemed to collapse in on themselves like the contracting field of a century-old CRT monitor.

 

For once the Inner Ring shone brighter than the Campus, and while the new light environment sorted itself out and the Vishkar employees below adjusted to the tide of darkness pouring in from the waterfront, Hanzo threw himself forward.

 

There was precious little room to gather the momentum he needed, but it was enough. He launched into the empty air, sailing in a flattened arc over the street, barely clearing the wall and its pressure sensors, before he gathered his legs to brace for impact against the ground.

 

The jolt of landing, though his prosthetics absorbed a great majority of it, rattled his bones and taxed his knees and hips almost to their limit even as he rolled forward to absorb and kill his forward motion. The thick artificial turf underneath him muffled most of the sound as he allowed himself to sprawl until he lay flat, chest pressing into the soft plastic below.

 

Hanzo lay there for a bare pair of seconds, listening for any approaching, running footsteps, before he was moving again-- _back,_ towards the wall, battlecrawling in slow, controlled movements, eyes and ears scanning for the nearest Vishkar agents.

 

He spotted the two nearest pairs almost immediately. Each was about equidistant from him, as he had aimed for. He was completely dependent on the suit’s camouflage now--he had increased its resolution to maximum, and he was as invisible as he could possibly be without a true cloaking device. Now it was up to the Vishkar guard dogs to dismiss any sound they may have heard.

 

His passenger squirmed in its sack, echoing the distant anxiety Hanzo held in steel claws under decades of training. Adrenaline was his enemy now--it threatened to burn away his energy before he had a chance to use it, trying to siphon it away into tense muscles and a paranoid hindbrain. But he kept it at bay with relaxed muscles and a cold mind even as he dispassionately watched the Vishkar fail to spot him.

 

He could see them surveying the grounds in a relaxed, methodical way. Their visors passed over his slowly moving form once, twice--thrice. One of each pair raised a hand to tap at their ears in a gesture all-too-familiar to Hanzo these past two-and-a-half months, and the audio scanners whispered muffled, slightly distorted words into his ears. The voices were calm, even a bit drowsy.

 

Vishkar really should have allowed a day or two for their employees to recover. Hanzo smiled to himself at the thought.

 

He reversed course, moving away from the wall and towards the dark hulking silhouette of the bunker.

 

It stood some eighty meters away, as dark and unassuming as the pyramid had been bright and striking. It was made of plain, bare, unfinished, grey concrete with a simple three-level tiered design, underwhelming compared to the vanished pyramid but still large enough to take up most of a city block. Here and there the rough concrete was interrupted by manhole covers and metal panels set into the walls where the hardlight wiring, plumbing, and various other services met with the municipal supply. It looked spectacularly utilitarian.

 

Hanzo’s target entrance was on the third tier, as high up and far away from the Vishkar agents as possible.

 

He covered the distance in a few short minutes, pausing to check for Vishkar patrols or drones. There were certain to be a few scrutinizing the grounds of the Campus from above, but if so the suit seemed to be holding them off.

 

One of the suit’s principal marvels was that the nanowebbing cloth and armor harvested as much of Hanzo’s own body heat as possible to power the jammers and supplement the batteries. It did not matter that the power generation was quite low, what mattered was that it was turning as much of his infrared radiation into microwave and radio radiation as possible, acting like a layer of fluorescent paint over most of his body. It was not perfect; the suit required at least part of Hanzo’s skin to be exposed because the suit could neither harvest one hundred percent of his body heat nor could it prevent some of the radio and microwave radiation from re-entering his body (and Hanzo was forever thankful that it was non-ionizing radiation and therefore harmless) and being converted back into heat. What it _did_ do was reduce his infrared signature into something resembling a cat or a bird or some other small animal, which most automatic scanners were programmed to ignore as background noise.

 

As Hanzo drew near to the bunker, it seemed clear that Vishkar did not buck the trend--they were adjacent to a waterfront after all, and not too far from a large forest reserve.

 

As soon as he was at the base of the bunker, he drew up to his full height and checked his surroundings. The two nearest pairs of Vishkar had not yet changed positions, but he grimaced at the sight of another pair off in the distance passing by the shell of the Public Outreach bunker--likely a patrol. He would be wise to be inside the bunker before there were more eyes close by.

 

He leapt at the wall and scurried up the side, the points of his clawed feet gripping the unfinished concrete easily. He bounded up onto the middle tier and crouched, eyes flashing in search of anyone patrolling this level, but finding no one. He ran and sprang up the next wall, leaping over the edge onto the top tier. Still, he was alone.

 

He moved quickly to his chosen entry site, a pressure door that led into the bunker’s simplest and least secure area: the photonic-electric battery storage. There was little there to guard, and the heat from the servers below made it unlikely that anyone would linger. Indeed, Hanzo could hear the dull roar of the waste heat from the servers being vented from somewhere on the roof of the third tier. It would be an ideal entry point were it not for the highspeed fans forcing the air up and out of the bunker--more than one corporate spy had fallen victim to similar ventilation systems worldwide, with predictably gory results.

 

Hanzo unclipped the laser welding torch from his belt as he examined the pressure door, eyes narrowed, but Agent Lúcio’s information was again quite useful--each use of the laser completely expended the battery, and while Hanzo had enough for six tries, one would be preferable.

 

Hanzo placed the torch firmly against the door itself about waist-high, a few centimeters from its edge and just above the door handle. He glanced behind him. He would be hiding most of the torch’s light with his own body, but Vishkar has positioned its agents far enough away from the bunker to be able to see onto each tier. The approaching patrol was the most likely to see him, however--the others would hopefully be watching the wall rather than the secure bunker.

 

He adjusted his position slightly to account for the patrol and pulled the trigger. A dull red flash spilled out from around the oval hole that appeared in the door, its edges glowing yellow in the dark. There was a _pop_ of expanding vaporized metal, but it was overtaken by a rush of air as the pressure seal was breached.

 

Hanzo took hold of the handle and yanked it before the steel deadbolt could resolidify and weld the door shut. The door swung open with minimal resistance, allowing light to pour out across the concrete. Hanzo swept inside and clicked the door shut behind him.

 

The heat in the room was stifling and startlingly dry--soon he could feel moisture being leached from his lungs with each breath. The room was lit with soft red emergency lights, with banks of knee-high photonic-electric batteries lining the floor in orderly rows.

 

He crouched behind one of the banks and swiftly assembled Storm Bow, testing the taut string with satisfaction before hooking it over his shoulder. Trusting in the lack of any alarms in the meantime, he moved quickly to the only other door in the room, swapping out the torch’s battery as he went--the spent battery was hot enough to feel even through his nanowebbing glove.

 

He tried the door handle, and to his surprise the door swung open.

 

He was immediately on his guard, sweeping Storm Bow off his shoulder and two arrows, sonic and scatter, out of his quiver, holding them loosely but at the ready against Storm Bow’s arc. He scanned the hallway outside the doorway, taking in the empty passageway with narrowed eyes before he glanced at the door itself and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

 

It did not even have a lock; it was just an ordinary door like one would find in a home or an office.

 

He shook his head, his mouth twisted into a disbelieving scowl. He had not believed Agent Lúcio when he said that Vishkar trusted so much in their hardlight security measures that they expended minimal effort elsewhere--or rather, he had not believed that they would trust so much in them _still._ Was Vishkar truly so foolish? They had been infiltrated at least once before by Agent Lúcio himself--surely they could find enough in the budget for simple _locks._

 

This _was_ just the battery storage, but Hanzo did not bother to repress the suspicion welling up in the pit of his stomach. It was never wise to trust in foolishness--it was easier to suspect that he was simply in the wrong building. The cowboy and Winston had agreed that the information Overwatch was seeking was more likely to be stored closer to Vishkar’s management departments rather than R &D or elsewhere--he could only hope this was not an early sign they were mistaken.

 

Nevertheless, he moved out into the passage, going over the schematics Agent Lúcio had provided in his head. The stairs should be at the other end on the left--and there they were, behind a door helpfully labeled STAIRS - LEVEL C. He cracked it open--the door shuddered as a rush of hot air poured out of the stairwell and tried to buffet it wide open. Hanzo gripped it tightly, lips pursed in concentration as he listened hard to the audio scanners for any sound of movement through the billowing air whooshing around the steps and guard rails and whistling low around the door itself.

 

Nothing.

 

He descended, arrows still at the ready. The servers should be one level down, along with various other storage rooms for physical backups and records. He paused on the landing before the door labeled LEVEL B and listened hard again. The audio scanners was picking up the sound of large fans and air barreling through too-narrow shafts, a sign that he was indeed close to his goal.

 

He tried the handle; once again it was unlocked.

 

He searched the passage beyond for any sign of life, but the heat here was almost enough to send him stumbling back. He was grateful that the insulating nanowebbing that prevented his body heat from escaping also served to block the worst of the heat swirling around him, but his hair was already drenched with sweat, the moisture trickling down his face and neck. For the first time he was thankful for the heatwave he had been enduring--his body was better primed to tolerate this inferno, but there was still the server room itself, where all the heat was doubtless being generated. This reconfiguration was surely taxing the servers to their limit.

 

Hanzo moved out into the passage, automatically turning right. He glanced up at a sign hanging from the ceiling in front of the stairway door, the letters a dark vermilion against a black background in the emergency lighting.

 

He stopped short.

 

← ARCHIVES

← FUSION PLANT - LEVEL B

CENTRAL SERVERS →

ELEVATORS →

 

Hanzo blinked at it, his brows furrowing.

 

Fusion plant? Vishkar did not _have_ any--

 

He shook himself. He had spent weeks listening to newscasters and people on the street alike complain about Vishkar’s--supposed--lack of fusion technology, but he was not here for them.

 

He stalked down the hallway, alert for any noise behind the steadily building rumble. He met no one and found no indication that he had been detected when he came to the server room.

 

 _This_ door was reassuringly reinforced.

 

It was fairly similar to the pressure gauge door Hanzo had already passed, with two notable differences.  For one, this door was flanked on either side by large bay windows that allowed passers-by to see almost the entire server room on the other side. For another, there was a keypad and handprint scanner set into the wall at its side, similar to the server room in Watchpoint: Niigata. This one, however, was both live _and_ likely to contain failsafes of some kind, perhaps even a powercut to help safeguard the information contained within the servers. Usually such a setup required an infiltrator to carefully dismantle the keypad and either hack its mainframe or, worse, somehow disconnect it without setting off the failsafes.

 

But Hanzo was a Shimada.

 

He pressed his left forearm against the keypad, careful not to activate it, and reached out with his mind.  

 

 _Grant me entry,_ he commanded, lips and jaw set in an imperial expression under his mask.

 

The dragons moved, writhing in the space between his skin and blue and golden ink. From beneath the nanowebbing came the ethereal glow that was less substance than cloud yet more solid than light. It swirled around his arm for a moment before rushing into the keypad. The audio scanners immediately picked up the crackling and sizzling of the electronics hidden underneath.

 

Once he felt the dragons return, Hanzo got out the torch once more, pressed it against the door, and fired. Another _pop_ and rush of air, and the way was clear.

 

He paused and squinted distrustfully up and down the hallway on either side.

 

This was far too easy.

 

It had taken less than fifteen minutes to get this far from his perch in the Inner Ring when it should have taken that long just to get through the bunker itself. Agent Lúcio’s intelligence and reassurances notwithstanding, he should have faced more barriers than _this._ More locked doors, forcefields, _guards._ It was hot in here, true, but nothing that even an unsuited healthy adult could endure if they were properly hydrated.

 

He looked the server room over for any other escape than the entrance he stood at--there was none. Grilles rattled overhead as the ventilation system sucked air out of the room, but they were a last-ditch, likely futile alternative.

 

He took a breath and set his jaw. Despite his misgivings, there was no choice but to move forward.

 

He entered, fully expecting a klaxon wail and steel barriers to come crashing down over the bay windows and the open door, sealing him in with no hope of escape.

 

Nothing.

 

The server room was cavernous, far larger than Watchpoint: Niigata’s, but with a low ceiling that managed to lend the large room a claustrophobic feel, as though the ceiling was pressing down on it. It was hot where he stood, with heatlines rising from the aisle just in front of him. The servers were arranged so that each row’s outtakes expelled into every other row, which the ventilation system was attempting to vent while it blasted chilled air into the other rows to be scooped up by the intakes. The rumbling cacophony of noise was immense, even through his protective earwear. It was clearly not keeping up with the servers as they were fed the unimaginable amount of code a hardlight facility required to take and maintain its shape, but Hanzo shuddered at the thought of what might happen if the ventilation system were to break down--a firestorm, most likely.

 

He needed to work quickly. He listened to the noise, turning in place. It was quieter off to his left. He followed the trail of lower volume until he came to a bank of servers that were active but hardly contributing to the bedlam at all. He moved into one of the intake aisles and crouched out of sight of the bay windows. The ventilation system was having a much easier time keeping the temperature down in this portion of the room, though hot breezes tried to sweep away the cooler air from all sides regardless. He unzipped the pouch that encircled his waist and laid out all six spyders. He unclipped the comm and unlocked it, revealing the hacking program Winston and Athena had provided. Hanzo carefully placed the comm face-up on the ground and tapped the screen, activating the program.

 

The spyders sprang into action, legs moving with almost whiplike movements as they skittered across the floor. Two of them seemed to chose a couple of servers at random, climbing up the racks and jabbing their legs into the holoethernet connections. They and their comrades stood stockstill for a few tense seconds, then the other four scattered in all directions under the racks.

 

This, this was when Hanzo had to trust most in Vishkar’s folly. The comm would normally be far too weak to even attempt to bypass industrial-level cybersecurity, but Hanzo’s physical presence in the server room hopefully meant it would not have to--all it really needed to do was locate where compromising data was likely to be stored and copy it, encryption and all. Then Hanzo would act as a courier to someone who _could_ hack the encrypted data, namely Winston and Athena, who could only hope that what he brought them was both crackable and useful.

 

However, this all depended on how sure Vishkar was that nobody could physically access their servers. If they were particularly paranoid, the comm would find itself hopelessly outclassed. That was one reason to use six spyders concurrently--spread out and plugged into strategic servers, they were more likely to find compromising data without running into security programs that might prevent the access and transfer of data between individual machines. That was the idea, at least.

 

Hanzo could only wait and see if they were successful, but the lockless doors weighed heavily on his mind. Did Vishkar simply deem that the hardlight that surrounded this bunker 99.99% of the time was sufficient, did it safeguard the data in these servers in a way that made it impossible to decrypt or steal, or was compromising information simply not here?

 

This was ostensibly the shortest phase of the mission, but the seconds and minutes ticked by with a perverse languor as Hanzo waited with no better thoughts to occupy him, the heat lending a bizarre sense of a boring, endless, expectant, hot summer afternoon. He crouched out of sight next to the comm with Storm Bow and arrows in hand, ready to snap to full alertness at the slightest indication of discovery, watching and listening for any movement or sudden sound. He watched the comm out of the corner of his eye; the screen showed no indication of progress, only a buffering icon that slowly spun and spun and spun.

 

If Athena was correct about it taking less than five minutes, then these were extraordinarily long minutes.

 

Hanzo was far more used to physically ripping a hard drive out of some console and delivering _that_ to a client--it was certainly faster, if noisier, and Hanzo usually had to incapacitate more than one meddling security guard to be able to work in peace. This felt all wrong--no guards and nothing else to do but cool his heels, feel the ventilation ruffle his hair as sweat trickled down his neck, and listen to the rumble of the vents. He occasionally stirred at the shriek of some far-off fan in need of lubrication, but nothing more notable happened.

 

The icon spun on.

 

After a while, Hanzo could no longer hold back the temptation. Shifting Storm Bow slightly, he tapped at his wrist.

 

“Time: 2003,” a scanner spoke into his ear.

 

It had been at least eight minutes, Hanzo realized. Possibly more than ten.

 

Something was wrong.

 

Winston had warned him that the reconfig could potentially slow the process by hogging the processors, but that was why he had sought out the servers least likely to be involved in the reconfig. Had he been mistaken? Perhaps these servers had been waiting for data to be downloaded into them--perhaps Vishkar was expanding. Or these servers could be completely empty reserve storage--but the first two spyders were still latched onto the machines they had first clung to. Would they have done that if they were empty? Where were their comrades?

 

Hanzo grit his teeth, scowling beneath his mask with forehead creased with irritation. He wished there was some indication of the hacking program’s progress, but for whatever reason, there was none displayed on the comm’s screen. Had it frozen? Had some Vishkar security program incapacitated it?

 

His fingers itched to pick up the comm, but that was the signal to abort. It would supposedly keep working as long as it was motionless and untouched.

 

Surely that was an excessive security feature, Hanzo thought sourly.

 

The icon spun on.

 

 _Should_ he abort?

 

The comm’s screen flashed.

 

PROGRAM EXECUTION: SUCCESSFUL read out on the screen before it went black.

 

Hanzo swiftly clipped the comm to his belt as the two spyders hanging off the servers before him dropped to the ground with soft clicking noises and withdrew their legs into their carapaces.  He stuffed them into his pouch along with the others as they returned one by one.

 

He zipped the pouch closed and tapped on his wrist once more.

 

“Battery level: thirty-five percent.”

 

Better than he expected. The nanowebbing’s thermocouples were harvesting more power from the surroundings than he thought they would, but he had to hurry.

 

Storm Bow at the ready, ears and eyes scanning the vast, low room, he approached the exit.

 

The ground trembled.

 

He dashed forward, lunging and rolling through the doorway and popping back up to one knee, sweeping Storm Bow from side-to-side, searching for a target, any target.

 

He blinked in surprise, wide-eyed, at the empty hallway, and again at the doorway yawning open before him. No alarms, no emergency barriers, no agents pouring in from every direction to subdue or detain or destroy him. If some failsafe had not been triggered, what--

 

A chill ran through him as he thought of the low thrum that precursed the Campus’ deactivation.

 

Agent Lúcio had estimated that it took the Rio de Janeiro center at least two hours to complete its reconfiguration, but perhaps here there was far more processor power to more quickly complete--

 

Hanzo was off like a shot, running down the hallway as fast as silence permitted. If the reconfig was complete, it was almost certainly over--there was little he could do against the security measures of a fully functional hardlight facility. The laser welding torch was useless when any surface could endlessly regenerate itself, and everything he touched would log his movements as he made them when the suit’s batteries failed.

 

He could, perhaps, attempt to take a hostage when Vishkar came for him and use them to bluff his way out, but Overwatch--

 

He had planned to enter the bunker through the battery storage and exit from the archives. The cowboy had been correct, back in Daisen, when he said that Hanzo tried to avoid using the same path twice, but even given this years-old policy, he was sorely tempted to retreat back the way he came, via a path that the laser torch had already opened, but he dared not. If the reconfig was complete, that was where they would detect the intrusion. The archives, along with battery storage, faced the Inner Ring and shortened his escape route, but now that entire side of the bunker was suspect. His best though vanishingly small chance was now via the freight entrance, on the opposite side of the bunker but in an area with a more open floorplan so he could more easily confront Vishkar agents at a distance, if it came to that.

 

He scurried into the freight elevator lobby. A simple security alcove stood to one side, but even a glance was sufficient to see it was not only unoccupied but caked with dust. An entrance to another set of stairs was off to the side of the wide aluminum elevator doors. Hanzo did not approach even though the audio scanners picked up no suspicious sounds of steps or breathing. Instead he nocked a sonic arrow and released it. It pierced the wall next to the stairway as his retinal implants activated.

 

Nothing. No one. He rushed forward, grabbing the sonic arrow and returning it to his quiver--the battery was dead but it could still serve its more basic purpose. He slowed after shoving the door open and descended the stairs cautiously. It became much cooler as he went--the heat was coming from Level B--but it was more than that, he realized. The air was muggy again--it was no longer being filtered and dried.

 

That was good and bad. Good, because it was muggy but not air-conditioned--the hardlight portions of the CA may not have reactivated after all. Bad, because air from outside had no business being here unless the freight entrance was--

 

“Station F, report! _Report!_ Dammit! Raju, go to Station D and see if anyone’s heard from Supervisor Nassar or his subgroup!”

 

He knew that voice: Victor Golf. The volume was low, on the edge of the audio scanners’ range, but she was just close enough. Hanzo thought furiously of the dimensions and layout of the freight entry--where would she be?

 

Whoever was with her acknowledged their orders, but they were far enough away that the sound of their footsteps were not picked up--assuming they had been next to her, that put them approximately twenty to forty meters away, depending on the thickness of the concrete wall separating them. Not helpful.

 

He could see the exit from the stairwell, labeled FREIGHT - LEVEL A. He selected another sonic arrow, hardly glancing at the yellow indicator light to make sure it was not the dead one before he let it fly. Again there was no one in range of the sonic arrow. He pursed his lips just as another vibration ran through the floor, but a second later the audio scanners picked up something else--the sound of an explosion.

 

“Fuck! Raju! Raju, get _back_ here! Get the fuck back here! Symmetra, this is Station C, what is your present location?” A beat. “Yes. Yes, we saw. Unitra, too? Fu-I mean, what do you--alright. Alright. Station D? Understood. Symmetra’s on her way, she says they’re most likely after R &D. Raju, looks like you’re turning around again, our directive is to reinforce the perimeter around Station D.”

 

“Everyone?!”

 

“No, just our subgroup, the others stay to make sure they didn’t hit Station F as a distraction. Come on, let’s go! Move!”

 

Hanzo went down the last few steps slowly, eyebrows furrowed in thought, allowing time for Victor Golf and her subgroup to leave as he sorted out the implications.

 

It seemed that Vishkar had underestimated more than one organization tonight.

 

Whoever this other party or parties was, they had not been deterred by Vishkar’s surprise brownout or its security forces--but more to the point, now that they were here, what strategies or tools would Vishkar now bring to the fore? If there were now less guards around the CA, all the better, but leaving the Campus itself was already going to be the most difficult part of this mission--his choices had been to go over the wall and trip the pressure sensors, go _around_ the wall and risk being spotted by any number of Vishkar before he reached the waters of the Somasila Reservoir, or just head straight for the Reservoir itself, make a swim for it, and risk whatever defenses Vishkar had planted in the water.

 

He _had_ planned on going around the wall--the time it would take would almost certainly use up the rest of the suit’s batteries, but going to the end of the wall meant he could then stick to the waterfront and skirt the Inner Ring’s eastern edge outside Vishkar’s influence until he got to the rental car.

 

But now that Vishkar was on high alert? Would they concentrate on Station F, blind to everything else, or would they be keeping eyes in every possible direction, looking for enemies on all sides?

 

Perhaps, Hanzo thought suddenly, now was the time to trust in the Inner Ring. The attack had started on Station F--he was fairly sure that Victor Hotel had said earlier in As You Like It that that was by the docks. If true, the entire waterfront was likely closed to him, but Vishkar might still trust that nobody could get through the Inner Ring without their knowledge. The trick would be getting through the Inner Ring before the suit’s batteries failed, and that would be difficult since the attack was almost certainly attracting attention from the Inner Ring’s inhabitants, emergency services, and, more than likely, Vishkar reinforcements.

 

But first there was the wall itself--it was a physical wall, no different from many other security fences that Hanzo had dealt with in the past, but now? Surely Vishkar would activate some hardlight enhancement, making the wall three times higher and absolutely covered in hardlight barbed wire or some other draconian nonsense.

 

Well. He would not find out anything while in this stairwell. He plucked the sonic arrow off the wall and returned it to his quiver as he inwardly debated whether he should head for some other exit--perhaps the archives exit facing the Inner Ring was the appropriate--

 

“Symmetra reporting. What is your status here?”

 

Hanzo stiffened at the sound of her voice. She sounded no different than she had in As You Like It, as cool and professional now as she was addressing coworkers in a café.

 

“Ma’am! Subgroup 5 has gone to reinforce Station D!” reported someone else, who sounded breathless and almost panicked in comparison.

 

“Any disturbances or intrusions?”

 

“No, ma’am!”

 

“Very well. Reserve Subgroup 1 are massing in the courtyard of the Pagidyala dormitories. I will leave a teleporter here and--”

 

“Here?!” the subordinate interrupted. He sounded aghast.

 

There was a pause. Then, “I have determined that Station D is the likely target. I will leave the teleporter here to ensure it is not destroyed,” Symmetra said in a crisp, cold tone that allowed no argument.

 

“Y-yes, ma’am.”

 

There was another pause.

 

“I will also leave turrets around the entrance.”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” said the subordinate with relief evident in his voice, though Symmetra’s was no less cold.

 

Hanzo stared at the door, face slack, mind working furiously, at war with himself.

 

A teleporter. A teleporter to Pagidyala, the easternmost city in the Inner Ring and bordering Prathakota, where the rental car was waiting.

 

A teleporter to the _Vishkar dormitories_ in Pagidyala.

 

The _courtyard_ of the Vishkar dormitories.

 

If this Symmetra was telling the truth of course--Hanzo found the detail of where these supposed reserves were coming from suspicious. She had been tightlipped in As You Like It, and she seemed to be calm and collected now--was she likely to just blurt out information like that? Or was it all a ruse, offering the perfect escape route to the intruder in the CA in an effort to draw them out?

 

Hanzo looked behind him, pursing his lips beneath his mask. There was one more exit from the bunker, but it faced R&D, and these reinforcements would soon be streaming past it, if some were not meant to also reinforce the CA’s perimeter as well. How likely were _they_ to miss him when they were already expecting enemies?

 

The ground shook under his feet, accompanied by the distant roar of another explosion.

 

“Defenses are in place,” Symmetra said. The audio scanners picked up the sound of footsteps as someone, two, three, more someones came in range, the light, unhurried click of high heels mixed with heavier, clumsier footfalls on concrete. “Maintain the perimeter until directed otherwise.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

A strange humming noise erupted, followed by mechanical sounds of gears and metal tapping on the floor, and then a high-pitched, warbling, almost musical tone. “Teleporter online. I have opened the path.”

 

She barely had time to complete the sentence when the audio scanners were overwhelmed with the sounds of overlapping footsteps and people talking over each other. Hanzo could discern Symmetra’s voice cutting through the noise, but it was impossible to tell what she was saying--but her voice rapidly dropped away as she evidently accompanied the reserves out of the freight entrance.

 

Hanzo moved away from the door, retreating up to the first landing of the stairway, but he went no further. If nothing else, a working teleporter was here. He could not say for certain where it truly led, but with the arrival of reinforcements his chances of getting through the Campus or even leaving the CA undetected were rapidly diminishing, especially if they were streaming around both sides of the bunker.

 

If he was already trapped in one Vishkar facility, he asked himself, lips set in a grim line, did it truly matter if he found himself in another?

 

He waited to see if the sounds of the reserve subgroup would diminish before he attempted to sneak through the door. It did not take long before the thudding steps faded out of the audio scanners, leaving only a low murmur of tense voices that were too close for comfort. Nevertheless, Hanzo approached the door and gingerly eased it open.

 

The freight entrance looked like a cargo bay of sorts--Hanzo saw with a flickering of hope that there were a few piles of trunks, cases, and random equipment scattered around the edges of the large room. That simplified matters.

 

The brilliant blue-white oval of the teleporter was the sole source of light. It floated in the exact center of the room almost directly in front of him, ripples lazily drifting over the opaque membrane-like entrance of the wormhole. The freight entrance itself was to the right, with two sectional roller doors completely raised, allowing a slight breeze to enter through the two wide entries.

 

Four Vishkar agents huddled together in the entryway closest to Hanzo were the only ones in the room, and he could see no others outside from this angle, but more importantly he could see no turrets--they must be placed outside. None of them had eyes on him, so he immediately slipped out of the stairwell, shutting the door swiftly and silently closed before he darted to the nearest piece of cover behind a neat stack of storage trunks almost as tall as him. From there, he re-evaluated the situation, his knuckles white around Storm Bow.

 

At least two of the Vishkar were partially facing the teleporter, though all four were obviously more focused on what was going outside. Nevertheless, he was unlikely to access the teleporter without them noticing, and then they would alert the Vishkar on the other side. He must get through unseen.

 

It seemed he would require the services of his passenger--but he had counted on using this distraction outside. It would still work best if it seemed to come from out in the grounds.

 

A flash of red-orange light poured in from outside. Hanzo waited for the Vishkar to finish shielding their eyes as they exclaimed out loud in surprise before he dashed to another stack of equipment, the ground quaking under his feet. When the rumbling boom hit, he had a split-second to check if the Vishkar were still distracted before he moved on to the next piece of cover. He crouched in its shadow, eyes narrowed, trying to judge if the distance was surmountable and the angle sufficient. He needed them to both look and move away from the teleporter, but not see--

 

“When’s the next subgroup coming in?” asked one of the Vishkar agents as the light finished fading from what most have been an impressive fireball.

 

“Not soon enough,” muttered one of the others, the one who had been answering Symmetra. He glanced at the teleporter, a frown clearly visible under his visor. The others followed his gaze, turning away from the spectacle outside--and away from Hanzo.

 

He tugged the sack off his belt and loosened the drawstring. For a heartstopping moment, he thought the heat from the servers had overheated and killed the creature within--but perhaps the scent of fresh air on its tongue alerted it that freedom was near, because it began to writhe as furiously as when the illegal pet trader had fished it out of its crate in the back alley shop in Mandlem.

 

He did not give it the chance to move for more than a moment before he flung the deadly chain viper out of the sack with a snapping motion, sending it skittering across the floor towards the Vishkar.

 

It slid to a stop, wrapped in a loose ball of coils and motionless as though dazed. A twitch ran through its body, and it languidly unrolled its meter-long body, tongue flicking as it assessed its surroundings.

 

The viper and the Vishkar saw each other at the same time.

 

“Snake!” one of them shrieked--possibly Symmetra’s subordinate, though the pitch was high enough to be uncertain.

 

Hanzo selected the chain viper for the species’ reputed aggressive nature, and it did not disappoint. It apparently did not like the bright light from the teleporter or the sudden movement of the Vishkar agents stumbling back, and it decided to express its displeasure by immediately striking out towards the group, fangs outstretched. Hanzo grinned at the satisfying chorus of reactions, and to his further pleasure one of them seemed to recognize the black splotches splattered against its golden scales. “Fuck, it’s a viper, it’s a _viper,_ get back, get _back, getbackgetbackgetback--”_

 

Hanzo grasped the opportunity and surged forward, the blue-white oval in front of pulsing in welcome, an arrow nocked and ready for whatever he met on the other side.

 

The viper sidewinded towards the darkness outside, mouth wide open and hissing loudly. None of the Vishkar acknowledged Hanzo at all--one of them must have stumbled and fallen, and two of his coworkers were physically dragging him away. He got a glimpse of the fourth agent disappearing outside before the scene disappeared in a microsecond flash of white light.

 

He had only had the pleasure of using a teleporter four times in his life, and it was nowhere near enough to build any kind of tolerance to the sheer disorientation of such a complete and instantaneous change in his surroundings. It carried the same sensation as waking from a drunk blackout or anesthesia or a sucker punch knockout in a strange room, which did not flatter the experience at all.

 

Hanzo stumbled a bit as he ran, searching his surroundings furiously, twisting his head from side to side.

 

The sky was open and black above him, framed by the pinnacles of three skyscrapers.

 

He was outside.

 

He was _outside._

 

He had a chance.

 

True to Symmetra’s word he was in a large courtyard nested between the three towers. The glass facades of the ground level floors were ablaze with light, revealing a harried crowd of Vishkar architechs and agents inside each lobby, supervisors pointing and shouting in all directions.

 

Hanzo spared a glance behind him; three Vishkar agents had their _backs_ to him--they were facing the space left open by the three towers, the main entrance into the residential complex.

 

A high wall closed off the gaps between the three towers--if it was hardlight, he wouldn’t be able to climb it, but if the night’s immense luck continued to hold--

 

\--he leapt lightly at the wall--

 

\--and felt the tips of his crampons grab a tight hold. It was real.

 

He scrambled up and over the wall, pausing for the briefest of moments at the crest for a look before he let himself drop over the other side, landing with the softest of _clangs_ in a narrow, deserted street, buildings presenting blind walls to the dumpsters and piles of random, abandoned detritus.

 

Hanzo raced lightly through the street, ears burning for any sound of pursuit as he left the trio of Vishkar dormitories behind. He turned down the second alley he found that was comparable to this first one, and then down the next, and then down the third, no destination in mind except to work his way further and further away from Vishkar. His suit was still charged--the audio processors were still feeding him the noises of vermin scurrying away from alley cats and the wail of distant sirens, and when he crossed the moving sidewalk of a bigger thoroughfare, it did not react to him in the slightest. The comm bounced against his leg where it sat clipped to his belt.

 

He had done it.

 

_He had done it._

 

Now he fought against another wave of adrenaline, his heart trying to thud far heavier than was necessary to power his running and an almost drunken relief trying to dull his senses and overpower his restraint. It was nearly as dangerous now as when he first entered the Satellite Campus--if he stopped for even a moment, the tremor in his limbs would make his limbs slacken and he would waste precious time recovering from both the released stress of the mission and his damnable ecstasy to find himself alive and free.

 

He was not free. _That_ thought helped him regain control, wipe the madman grin off his face, and recenter himself.

 

He was not free--he had to report to Overwatch. To Winston, to the cowboy--and to Genji.

 

The immediate threat of entire dormitories of Vishkar agents far behind, he could now take the time to find where he was and make his way to the rental car, and from there to the extraction point in Nallamala Forest, where he would wait for the transport to arrive.

 

It would be easiest to find the waterfront and follow it to Prathakota, hidden at a distance, of course. He crept to a bigger street and found a roadsign pointing in the right direction before he faded back into the back alleys. The city was situated on a small concave bay of the reservoir, so it was difficult to maintain a curved heading that avoid the more populated and busier districts, but Hanzo had been expecting to be wading through mudflats when he wasn’t outright swimming as he skirted the Inner Ring with an unpowered suit. This alternative was faster, though more nervewracking. The city was far too active--Hanzo heard no further explosions, but he did hear a chorus of sirens moving around in the distance on all sides that went on for nearly an hour before they cut off one by one. There were groups of people huddling in random and unexpected spots talking in low, excited voices when they were not watching portable holoscreens that showed flashes of light and crowds of Vishkar, emergency responders, and civilians interspersed with newscasters and pale-faced officials, both Vishkar and civil.

 

It was past 2130 when Hanzo passed out of the Inner Ring at last into the outskirts of Prathakota. This city, like Mandlem, was “down on its luck”, but it, too, was stirring at the news coming out of the Satellite Campus and the Inner Ring. Hanzo had to avoid more civilians who were foregoing their usual evening activities to gather in spaces that afforded views of the Inner Ring’s skyline as they shared news and rumors with their neighbors and random passers-by.

 

The rental car was waiting in an unassuming mixed-industrial area. Hanzo had to spend some time looking for it--parking was scarce no matter the time of day, and the comm had entered stealth mode before it could report where it had found a spot. Hanzo had placed most of his belongings and the security subsystem in the trunk to present as little temptation to thieves as possible, though his cello case was in the backseat. It was apparently not enough to attract attention--the car appeared untouched when Hanzo found it in a mercifully deserted side street.

 

That did not stop him from checking it as thoroughly as he could. He drew near enough to toss Spyder Three underneath it. The security subsystem, waiting for this proximity signal, immediately took control of it and sent it sniffing around, inspecting the exterior, antigrav pods, and undercarriage and even climbing up into the engine block and battery compartment to inspect them for bugs or sabotage. It apparently found none; it simply dropped back out and withdrew its legs into its carapace by the driverside front antigrav pod. Hanzo carried out a quick inspection of his own regardless, approaching to peer through the windows to make sure the cello case was unmoved before he scooped up the spyder, unlocked the car, and climbed in, powering it on immediately and keying in a destination south of the Kurnool District.

 

The suit’s batteries could last halfway through the journey to this random checkpoint. Hanzo lowered the backrest and lay as hidden as possible as the car’s engine whirred softly and and the antigrav pods hefted it up and out into the street. He might as well wait until they were off the surface streets and on a highway before he changed back into his usual attire. He kept Storm Bow and his quiver within easy reach in case he happened upon more trouble, but if Vishkar had detected him, he rather thought their priorities might be elsewhere. All the same, with the heightened security that would surely get set up across the district, it would not be too difficult to catch him in a net of some kind if they knew who to look for.

 

The glowing pulse of relief in his chest was attempting to disarm and mollify him and get him to drop his guard, but he refused. Much could still go wrong in the hours before the Orca landed and he delivered the comm to Overwatch.

 

The comm with its precious cargo lay hidden in the cello case--given the events of this evening, Hanzo thought it wise to wait for some distance from Vishkar before reporting in, or using the comm at all, really. Given the size and the audacity of the attack on the Satellite Campus, it was likely Vishkar, the Andhra Pradesh State Police, and the Indian Armed Forces were using every tool at their disposal to scour the area. The comm was a fairly unique device--it might stand out too much if it was caught in some sort of cybersweep.

 

He kept watch on starless sky and the snippets of street lights that flashed by the windows before the car merged onto Highway 50 and greatly increased speed. There was little traffic, so he was soon able to start stripping off the armor and peel the nanowebbing from his sweatsoaked skin. He had to turn down the A/C when he started to shiver from the cold air over his drenched limbs and chest. This was the least appealing part of any mission with the suit, but at least this one had been both successful and clean; sweat was much easier to get out of the nanowebbing than blood.

 

He scooped a package of wet wipes and a stick of deodorant from the cello case and did the best he could to clean himself up--he was fairly sure the semitruck that passed him in the meantime got an eyeful--before he dressed again.

 

After such a touch-and-go mission, he longed to be back in his habitual and comfortable _hakama_ and _yukata_ , but on the off-chance that Vishkar had put out the word to look for anyone wearing Japanese-style clothing, he pulled on more non-descript slacks and a buttondown shirt.

 

The car merged onto Highway 27 and sped southwards. He searched for any vehicles that seemed to be following before he felt he could afford the distraction and turned on the radio. He searched for an English-language station--the Moth was in the cello case, but as he coasted from station to station, all the Telugu- and Urdu-language newscasts sounded rapid-fire and switched quickly from person to person. He did not feel like burning his ear off if he could avoid it, but his curiosity and paranoia had been awakened by the coincidence. Did they know who had attacked Vishkar’s second-biggest facility? Was it for similar reasons as Overwatch, or simply to steal Vishkar technology? Where had they come from and how had they hidden their intentions? Had the Vishkar agent, Symmetra, been correct when she said they were attacking R&D? Would there be any mention of the smaller-scale but perhaps just as distressing break-in of the Central Administration? How much would Vishkar attempt to keep hidden?

 

Hanzo thought suddenly of Victor Hotel and his subgroup of tired, zombie-like, _young_ architechs, drinking coffee instead of tea. All assigned to Station F, down by the docks. The apparent first casualty of the attack.

 

Well. Every power-hungry organization always put the young directly in harm’s way. Hanzo knew this. He had put many dozens and hundreds of them there himself.

 

He leaned back in his seat and let his head drop back and stared vacant-eyed at the ceiling. The highway swept past, the streetlamps keeping a steady rhythm of light as they passed by.

 

The brightest stars began to appear as the car took Hanzo south and out from under the cityglow. The dark mass of Nallamala Forest and the Eastern Ghats gradually approached on Hanzo’s left; at first there were a towering shadow in contrast to the densely populated core cities and suburbs of the Kurnool District, but soon enough there was little to distinguish them as Hanzo entered the nearly abandoned Kadapa District.

 

The Kadapa District had been Andhra Pradesh’s least populated district for some time, but before the Crisis it still boasted a population of almost four million, the same as Hanzo’s home prefecture but in an area twice as big. Much of that was taken up by the Eastern Ghats, but the rest had been a large fertile valley dotted with dozens of agricultural villages and towns. But the Omnic Crisis struck hard, even in countries that never saw a single battle during the war, like India.

 

India never hosted an Omnium--the country’s strong labour unions had feared mass unemployment and fought hard to thwart any attempts of OmnicaCorp to place any of their facilities on Indian soil. OmnicaCorp had had a rather cavalier attitude to such resistance and simply focused their attention elsewhere--India had been the only major economy to refuse an Omnium, so there was plenty to do elsewhere.

 

But when the cities of the world began to burn, India did not escape unscathed.

 

The scores of citywide conflagrations that swept across Asia, Europe, and the Americas sent gigatons of nitrogen oxides and soot into the upper atmosphere, and the 20th century’s fears of a nuclear winter were realized a century late without a single nuclear bomb detonated. India, however, was ultimately caught off-guard, swept up in the unprecedented mobilization to aid the hundreds of millions of China’s stricken population caught between the droves of Omnics streaming south out of Siberia and north from Hunan, squeezing them away from Pacific coast into the deserts, steppes, and mountains in the west.

 

So when temperatures dropped worldwide and the monsoon failed, and failed, and failed _again_ , ten years in a row, India found itself in desperate straits--and the world, caught up in the struggle for survival, turned deaf ears to its own pleas for aid. World food production as a whole dropped, it was true, but countries such as the United States and Russia chose to hoard their supplies with the expectation that the war might drag on for decades before Overwatch’s first iteration fought the Omnic advance to a standstill and then fought them back, but by the time it was clear the tide of war was turning, it was already far too late.

 

India never saw a single battle on its soil during the Omnic Crisis, but it lost four hundred million people regardless, nearly as many as China.

 

It was a testament to India’s ingenuity in desperate times that the total population never dropped below one billion, a feat it shared with China though through vastly different means--an aggressive drive to modernize the country’s agricultural sector ultimately reduced water use by 95% and allowed the country to end the famine even when the monsoon only gradually recovered in the years since the end of the Crisis. But the world community’s abandonment of India left an indelible mark on the national consciousness, a mark almost as deep as the vast abandoned tracts of former farmland all across the subcontinent. India’s population had been 60% rural when the Crisis began. By its end, that proportion had dropped to 35%, both from the starving masses of refugees pouring into the cities searching for sustenance--and from the casualties.

 

Kadapa District now served as a monument to the Indian experience of the Omnic Crisis. Flat, empty, and lightless scrublands surrounded the highway, with the headlights of the car flashing across the odd white concrete wall when it frequently passed through abandoned villages. Often the only manmade structures free of creeping overgrowth were the simple domed cenotaphs in the former village squares.

 

Hanzo was used to similar scenery, but there was something more visceral about the empty shell of Kadapa. Out of all the cities and prefectures within range of the Hokkaido Omnium, only Hokkaido itself remained almost completely empty--even the Forbidden Four Prefectures were slowly repopulating despite the strict controls of entry and exit.

 

But Hokkaido’s populace had largely managed to evacuate when the Omnium turned red. It was not--haunted--by the drawn out tragedy of famine and starvation the way Kadapa and so many other parts of India were.

 

Hanzo was glad to stir out of his somber thoughts when the car exited the highway. He was near the turnoff for the rendezvous with the transport, he was far out of the Kurnool District and any hint of Vishkar influence, and there was no sign of pursuit. The car was now trundling along a local road that led towards the sole town in the northern half of the Kadapa District--Hanzo would turn it around once he got confirmation from Overwatch that the rendezvous was still a go.

 

He reached into the cello case, withdrew the comm, and keyed in the code to bring it out of stealth mode.

 

While it searched for a signal and connected, Hanzo could not keep his eyes from lingering on the secure messenger’s icon.

 

As Hanzo had discussed the mission with the cowboy and Agent Lúcio and made his preparations, there had been a disquieting, foreboding feeling in the background all the while as the Orca reversed course and sped back to Gibraltar to fetch Genji. He thought he could detect it in both himself and the cowboy--Agent Lúcio had seemed unaware of it, indeed, unaware of any reason for it. That was worrisome by itself, but for different reasons. It had been a relief to break away from the--conversation, briefing, impromptu planning session, whatever it was--and focus on moving his equipment to the rental car and inspecting and preparing the suit, and an even bigger relief when he was given the go-ahead to start making his way towards--but not to enter--the Inner Ring even before the transport had landed, in recognition of Agent Lúcio’s belief that Vishkar would wish to begin and end the reconfiguration as soon after nightfall as possible.

 

At that point it seemed unlikely that Genji would be able to speak to him beforehand even if he wished to. Instead, Agent Lúcio had wished him an enthusiastic _“Detona eles, campeão!”_ and left the commlink. After a brief pause the cowboy followed with a quiet, “We ain’ there with ya, but we got your back. 76’s even pacin’ around down here, that’s how bad he wants t’get goin’.” Another pause, and-- “Good luck, Agent Shimada.”

 

Somewhat predictable on both counts, though the cowboy’s words were more well-crafted than he expected. Soldier: 76’s supposed concern was a somewhat baffling detail, given his avowed priority of keeping Overwatch agents out of danger. Surely he of all people would be most in favor of sending only a single agent instead of six, and not even a full agent at that--it was far more likely he was fretting over the possibility of a rescue mission than over Hanzo, if he was truthfully fretting at all.

 

But those had been the only sendoffs Hanzo had received before audio communication was suspended, and he did not expect to receive any more--but he really should not be surprised by Genji as often as he was.

 

One last message had appeared in the queue of the secure messenger app, just before stealth mode was activated and signaled Hanzo to begin his infiltration.

 

> >From: Agent Genji
> 
>  
> 
> Watch yourself, brother, but remember:
> 
> The team includes you.

 

Unnecessary.

 

Hanzo was still dwelling on this when the comm finally finished reestablishing the signal.

 

It immediately began to chime and vibrate as the secure messenger displayed several received messages and a chat window immediately opened on the screen.

 

> >Athena
> 
>  
> 
> Agent Shimada, I have detected your
> 
> comm coming online. What is your status?

 

He stared at the message for a moment before he began to type a response, but he was interrupted by an incoming phone call.

 

He scrambled for the Moth or his regular earpiece, finding the latter first and stuffing it in his ear. “This is Agent Shi--”

 

“Agent Shimada! You okay?! What happened?!” The cowboy was very nearly shouting, and before Hanzo could reply, there was a clamor of background noise, voices overlapping each other and rising and falling in volume. He stared at the screen. What was going on?

 

Before he could formulate a response, Winston’s booming bass erupted in his ear, making him almost wrench the earpiece out. “Sh--Mister-- _Agent_ Shimada, where--oh, you’re at the checkpoint! You _are_ at the checkpoint, right? Oh, everyone, everyone just _calm down_ for a second, quiet, quiet please! We don’t even know his status! Agent Shimada, can you hear me? Uh, actually, first, real, _real_ quick, how’s the weather?”

 

Hanzo almost blurted out _What?_ before he caught himself. There was a code phrase meant to signal that he was not under duress. “The rain cleared out three days ago,” he said carefully, glad to have something prepared to say. At least two exhalations were the reply, perhaps more, but at least three people, all of them unfamiliar, were still babbling in the background. Someone finally shushed at them and they fell silent. “My status is green across the board. I have completed the mission successfully.”

 

Someone, most likely Agent Lúcio, let out a whoop, but there was a chorus of shushes and he fell silent once more.

 

“Were you--” began the cowboy as Winston said, “And the--” They both feel silent, perhaps waiting for the other to speak, before Winston cleared his throat. “And the attack? Did it start before or after you got out?”

 

Hanzo shifted uncomfortably. Were they going to debrief him over the commlink? “Before.”

 

Winston sucked in a breath. “Before. Before. He was in there when they started.”

 

Before Hanzo could reply, the cowboy asked, “You get a look at any of ‘em, Agent Shimada?”

 

“No--I would prefer not to discuss details over the commlink, but--”

 

“‘No’’ll do for now, Agent Shimada,” interrupted the cowboy. “What about Vishkar? Did they get eyes on you at any point?”

 

“I--do not believe so.”

 

“Yes or no, Agent Shimada!” barked the cowboy urgently.

 

Hanzo’s grip on the comm tightened at the cowboy’s tone, but he replied evenly, “I cannot give you any better. I escaped, so I do not believe I was, but I cannot guarantee it.”

 

There was silence for a few moments. Then Winston sighed. “I’m sorry, Agent Shimada,” he said slowly. “We’ve been fearing the worst, for many reasons. Have you been listening to the newscasts?”

 

“No,” replied Hanzo, feeling a flush of embarrassment as he glanced accusingly at his cello case. Why had he chosen not to utilize the Moth? He had allowed the thrill of victory to impair him after all.

 

“Well--Athena hasn’t confirmed it yet, we’re working mostly with media speculation on the few images that Vishkar and the Indian Armed Forces weren’t able to suppress, but--it appears the attack tonight was carried out by Talon. And, like you, it looks like they were successful.”

 

Hanzo’s grip on the comm slackened.

 

“The Indian Air Force has declared a no-fly zone in a fifty-kilometer radius around the Satellite Campus--you’re well outside that, thank goodness, so we don’t believe they’re tracking you and, more importantly, we can still extract you with minimum difficulty, but--unfortunately--if you _were_ seen--”

 

Winston did not have to finish the sentence. If Hanzo had been seen, then he may now be suspected of being in league with Talon, the world’s most wanted terrorist organization.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUUUN
> 
> A lot of you have very little faith in Hanzo! He's a world class assassin, y'all, solo missions are his specialty! Haha! It's the _group_ missions you gotta watch out for!
> 
> But, for those of you that I've been teasing on Tumblr, don't worry!
> 
> The gutshot is coming.
> 
> Anywho!
> 
> [Kitsune2022](http://kitsune2022-artish.tumblr.com) was very kind to [make this piece of a scene which will be showing up in the very next chapter!](http://kitsune2022-artish.tumblr.com/post/164143043402/well-its-not-a-secret-at-this-point-that-yes) That's right!!! HANZO AND JESSE INTERACTION, COMING ON UP!
> 
> [Aligheriii](http://aligheriii.tumblr.com/), who writes [excellent McHanzo pieces in Spanish here on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aligheriii/pseuds/aligheriii), drew this [extraordinarily tired-looking Hanzo!](http://aligheriii.tumblr.com/post/165271940445/everytime-i-read-a-chapter-from-afterdrop-this-is)
> 
>  And [Hellomynameisandiam](http://hellomynameisandiam.tumblr.com/) picked up on a similar theme of Tired!Hanzo, drawing both [an _entire scene_ from Chapter 4](http://hellomynameisandiam.tumblr.com/post/165670388487/sketchy-comic-pages-from-claroquequizas-mchanzo) and this [quiet moment from Chapter 11!](http://hellomynameisandiam.tumblr.com/post/165455953452/you-guys-should-read-claroquequizas-mchanzo-fic)
> 
>  If you want to know how tired Hanzo is in this entire fic, ask Aligherii and Hellomynameisandiam. They know. _They know._
> 
>  And finally, [Scarbordoefair](http://scarbordoefair.tumblr.com) has been feeding the increasingly better-sounding idea of me turning this fic into McHankata with a [portrait of Venkata!](http://scarbordoefair.tumblr.com/post/165992710641/hey-if-you-havent-read-afterdrop-by) I added a little blurb [here](http://claroquequiza.tumblr.com/post/165993455634/scarbordoefair-hey-if-you-havent-read) because Venkata is a good man who deserves good things! 
> 
> Thank you all SO MUCH, every one of these pieces makes my heart sing!!
> 
> And thank you all for your comments and constructive criticism!! I'll try to have the next chapter out sooner than this one!! Have a great one!!
> 
> Edit (20/11/2017): Thank you to [Kuurara](http://kuurara.tumblr.com/) for correcting my Portuguese dialogue!! I appreciate it!!


	13. Among the Ruins

Overwatch did not arrive until early the next morning--the turnaround to pick up Genji had delayed them long enough that they had not begun the eleven-hour flight again until around 1800 IST.

 

Hanzo could not truly tell which was worse: the long wait or what awaited him.

 

The cowboy provided another long car trip that made a long loop of the Kadapa District, but as the night wore on, Hanzo saw a pattern emerge: whenever the car approached a village, abandoned or otherwise (few though they were), the car did its best to skirt the edges rather than drive straight through. This usually meant the car diverted merely a single street over, but it took the trouble nonetheless. After the third or fourth time, Hanzo zoomed in on the path the cowboy had sent to his comm, which revealed that this was, indeed, deliberate. It was telling that the cowboy had had the motivation to research this route before Hanzo had even made contact.

 

It meant that Overwatch feared detection, which was understandable enough.

 

The fact that they were also going to select another rendezvous point--and let Hanzo know where it was _after_ they landed--meant they also feared infiltration.

 

Hanzo made a valiant effort to sleep as the car accelerated and decelerated to follow the twisty path, but success was unlikely given his overactive mind, and only became increasingly improbable when pain began to creep into his legs, both phantom and real. The long jump into the Satellite Campus had bruised his stumps, an inevitable consequence despite the lion’s share of the shock being absorbed by his prosthetics and most of the rest being channeled into his bones. Hanzo even welcomed the developing bruises since the aching pressure and threatening inflammation helped to remind his brain that there was skin where bone and muscle should be, but the pain slowly evolved into a tug-of-war between the bruises and swelling and the phantom cramps in his calves and feet.

 

After a while he turned the radio back on to listen to the Telugu- and Urdu-language broadcasts in an attempt for some soothing background noise, trying to imagine the serious-sounding voices were, in fact, the droves of children and watchful adults in the alleyway behind his homebase. That worked, somewhat--he approached a hazy half-awareness for some time, brought closer to the surface of consciousness by an odd stab of pain from a disappeared foot, left to drift a little deeper when a newscaster’s voice resembled someone’s whom he had met during this long mission, a memorable patron in As You Like It, perhaps, or a particular street vendor.

 

But soon enough he was woken by a particularly sharp turn as the car took him through the backway of another village, the street pockmarked with potholes with waist-high saplings scraping at the bumpers, antigrav pods, and undercarriage as the car plowed over them.

 

Then it was another long period of vigilance, both inwards and outwards, as the quarter moon set in the west, deepening the gloom all around and lending the stars a sharp, crisp quality as they continued to track across the sky.

 

The comm, hidden once more in the cello case, chirped softly when the barest hint of twilight revealed the soft black-on-black silhouette of the Eastern Ghats on the far side of the valley. The timing, Hanzo discovered, was likely deliberate as well as he withdrew it and saw a chat window from Athena displayed on the screen.

 

 

 

> >Athena
> 
>  
> 
> Agent Shimada, the rendezvous coordinates are:
> 
> 15° 6'39.53"N 78°40'36.21"E
> 
> Please proceed there along this route at once.
> 
> Attached: Route3

 

Hanzo prodded at the file and transferred it to the car. He glanced at the map app and pursed his lips. The new rendezvous point was in a small valley leading out of the Eastern Ghats, surrounded on three sides by spurs coming off the mountain. He checked the time--it would have been about ten hours since Overwatch left Gibraltar. They had obviously made an effort to arrive as quickly as possible so as to find someplace abandoned yet easily searched and defended to wait for Hanzo, though he would be very surprised, even disappointed if the transport was anywhere near these coordinates--Overwatch would be extremely foolish to be anything less than paranoid now that Hanzo was potentially a Talon liaison.

 

It was unfortunate, extremely unfortunate, that Talon would target Vishkar just as Hanzo was released from the cowboy’s vigilance. The coincidence was far too great for there not to be a possibility of collusion--or recruitment, at the very least. Hanzo wanted nothing to do with terrorists, but there was no proof of that as far as Overwatch was concerned--they could know nothing of the Shimada-gumi’s flat rejection of Talon’s advances. The clan had made sure to keep its brief correspondence with the terrorist organization clandestine, and Genji had never been privy to the inner council’s deliberations, so he could not possibly have passed on that intelligence to Overwatch.

 

It was just as well; at this point Overwatch was far more likely to believe that Hanzo would desperately clutch at any straws, including any offered by Talon now that their positions were reversed. They were likely to believe that _now_ , even with no knowledge of previous communication.

 

Now he could only submit to Overwatch’s scrutiny and hope he did not do anything that could be misinterpreted as hostile. If he did--well. Agents Tracer and McCree could be counted on to defend Overwatch, possibly Agent Soldier: 76 as well, if Genji did not. It was difficult to tell what would be enough to convince _him_ what was the final straw, after all, but he hoped that if things went sour Genji would be the one to deliver the killing blow. It would be highly inappropriate if it were someone else--Hanzo would rather fight to make sure it was Genji than allow anyone else to strike him down.

 

However, it would be easiest to cooperate as fully as possible and prevent misunderstandings before they happened. If they suspected him of another betrayal, they would keep Genji as far from him as possible and he would not have the opportunity to deal with Hanzo as he ought.

 

It took another hour to cross the valley and approach the Eastern Ghats again--the car had not abandoned the protocol of avoiding the main thoroughfares--but soon they were looming above him as the sky slowly brightened, though it was still deep twilight when he arrived at the entrance of the small valley. The car slowed to pick its way around large fissures and potholes that bordered on sinkholes--even the antigrav could not safely traverse them. This road had obviously received zero maintenance for some time. The car’s autopilot transferred control to Hanzo twice when it could find no safe path on the road itself, forcing Hanzo to go offroad each time, ploughing over the tall, thick, yellowed weeds growing off the shoulders and startling dozens of insects into flight, white in the headlights.

 

The coordinates led him into a tiny village--or at least, the village’s central square, nestled on an overlook above the valley floor. Most of the former occupants appeared to have lived elsewhere, given that there were only a meager seven or eight large buildings arranged haphazardly around the square. Hanzo could only guess at most of their functions--the only building whose identity was indisputable was the small Hindu temple. The once-bright colors were dull and sunbleached in the headlights of the car, but it showed some signs of piecemeal upkeep: it was completely free of vines or other encroaching plant life, and the statues set into sheltered alcoves were smooth and unspoiled as though they were cast from fresh alabaster. Hanzo could even spy what looked like offerings gathered at the foot of each alcove, a little scattered by the wind and time, but fresh enough to indicate that someone, at least, remembered this faroff, deserted place and cared enough to periodically return.

 

Overwatch was nowhere to be seen.

 

If Hanzo’s mission had gone smoothly, he would have found a sheltered, out-of-sight spot to park the car, but now he guided it to set itself down in the center of the square, the antigrav pods crushing and crunching the dead grass poking through the brickwork. He switched off the headlights and turned off the engine, casting a cursory glance across the dark scene before he settled back in his seat. He picked up the comm and brought up Athena’s chat window as he reinserted his earpiece.

 

 

 

> >From: Agent Shimada
> 
>  
> 
> I have arrived at the coordinates and await further instructions.

 

The response was immediate. The comm beeped and 76’s gravelly voice, though hushed, carried an air of deadly seriousness into his ear. “I’ve got eyes on you. Anything to report?”

 

“No,” Hanzo replied concisely.

 

Agent Soldier: 76 grunted. “Good. I’m at your ten o’clock. Get out of the car and bring the comm with you.”

 

Hanzo obeyed. He kept his hands in plain sight as best he could as he undid his seatbelt and climbed out of the car, comm clearly displayed. The cool air conditioned air rapidly dissipated into the muggy early morning, and bugs were almost instantly buzzing in his ears. He suppressed a hiss of pain as he put his weight onto his bruised stubs--the bruises had had hours to develop by now--but he managed to stand and then walk without limping.

 

When Hanzo was four or five meters from the car, Agent Soldier: 76 came striding out of one of the abandoned buildings, dressed in his usual blue, black, and white, visor glowing a dull red in the dark. He came armed with a heavy pulse rifle.

 

Hanzo had a momentary, uncomfortable flashback to the Yoneyama warehouse, the last time he had seen the obviously military-issue weapon, though he had been focused on other matters at the time. He had not remembered how huge it was, for one, and he had not noticed its secondary function as a rocket launcher at all.

 

He continued without hesitating. Confident diffidence was key in this situation, even as Agent Soldier: 76 made no secret of scanning his surroundings as he approached Hanzo--at least he was not pointing the rifle directly at Hanzo. He was about to offer the comm when Agent Soldier: 76 ordered him to stop. “Rotate in place, Agent Shimada,” he directed, holding his rifle off to one side yet at the ready. He complied, holding his arms slightly away from his body as he turned. Agent Soldier: 76 scrutinized him, and Hanzo thought he could see faint blue lines flicker across the visor, though they quickly disappeared.

 

“You’re clean,” Agent Soldier: 76 said, as though for Hanzo’s benefit. “Comm?” Hanzo handed it over, and he gave it a quick lookover before he stuffed it securely into one of his jacket’s large pockets. Hanzo allowed himself a quick moment of sympathy--it was night, but it was not cool by any means, and the jacket could not be doing the man any favors. “We’ll do a scan of the car before we get going.” Hanzo nodded slightly, and Agent Soldier: 76 quickly withdrew four spyders from various pockets, tossing them one-by-one towards the car. They immediately set to work. Two of them began to check the exterior much as Hanzo’s had done, while the other pair scrambled on top of the car and then worked together to unlatch one of the doors, one dropping onto the door handle and popping it open as the other heaved it slightly open, allowing both to climb inside and begin sweeping the interior.

 

Agent Soldier: 76 watched them work for a few seconds before he jerked his head towards the building he had come out of. “Let’s get under cover.”

 

Hanzo nodded and moved towards the long, single-story building made of prefabricated concrete. Agent Soldier: 76 allowed him to walk alongside but slightly ahead of him. Hanzo pushed aside one of the surprisingly sturdy double doors and entered a small lobby of some kind. It smelled strongly of mildew and rotting plant material, but it was difficult to see much detail without even the twilight to help him.

 

He turned and was surprised to see that Agent Soldier: 76, while keeping ahold of his rifle in both arms, was leaning against the doorframe, head turned away from him to keep watch on the car through the shattered glass of the doors’ lites.

 

“There’s no sign of pursuit,” he said without looking at Hanzo, still with the air of him trying to reassure Hanzo, “but better safe than sorry.”

 

“Of course,” Hanzo said after a short pause.

 

“What made you say you weren’t sure if you were seen or not?”

 

Hanzo could not help but hesitate for a moment--an abandoned shell of a building was a strange setting for a debriefing--but he had been asked a direct question, and open honesty was one of his best allies now. “I used a teleporter to escape,” he said, keeping his voice low. “There were many people within sight of the exit, but if anyone saw me, they did not raise the alarm before I left the area.”

 

Agent Soldier: 76 grunted. “I see,” he said slowly. “Well, if anyone did, it hasn’t been made public yet.”

 

Hanzo did not answer. He stayed where he was, standing awkwardly in the middle of the lobby while Agent Soldier: 76 kept his visor on the car. The minutes ticked by slowly, leaving Hanzo to wonder how thorough the spyders were being--were they taking an inventory of some kind? He could not suppress a wave of irritation at the thought. He did not appreciate anyone going through his belongings even when there was nothing compromising or questionable among them, and at that moment there was his weaponry, his camouflage suit, his stimulants, and possibly even his sake to consider.

 

He still had the two cartons from Niigata secreted away in the cello case. He had been certain that he would tear through both as soon as he was settled in his homebase, but first exhaustion, then affliction, and finally occupation prevented him from indulging. He had been tempted the first couple of days, especially since the time he spent recovering from the long, stressful flight was ultimately wasted due to the phantom pain, but rather than turning to alcohol he had tried painkillers, and that was enough to assure that the cartons lay undisturbed in his cello case. It did not take too many bouts of gastrointestinal bleeding over the past decade to build enough self-dominance to avoid mixing ibuprofen with alcohol. There _had_ been an unexpected relief in simply being alone again that lessened the craving anyway, and when he got to work it was easier still to ignore.

 

He could use some now, though.

 

Thankfully it did not take much longer before Agent Soldier: 76 stirred. “Spyders are done,” he said softly, still not turning away from the doors. “Ultrasound didn’t find anything.” He faced Hanzo, letting his pulse rifle drop to one side. Despite that, Hanzo tensed. The other man’s shoulders raised and lowered, like he had taken a deep breath, before he spoke in a grave tone. “We’re clear to head back to the Orca in the car, but before we do, I thought I’d warn you. Genji’s here.”

 

He paused for a moment, as though to study Hanzo’s reaction. Hanzo did his best to give none, but he almost physically reeled back from trepidation and astonishment alike. Genji was--

 

“He insisted on coming,” continued Agent Soldier: 76, shaking his head slightly. “He’s been patrolling the perimeter, but he’ll be heading back with us.” Another pause. “Do you need a moment?”

 

Hanzo blinked slowly. A moment? No amount of time could possibly be sufficient, so he shook his head. “No. I am ready now.”

 

Agent Soldier: 76 seemed to study him for a moment or two more before he nodded. He raised a hand to a concealed ear and tapped. “Genji, report.” Hanzo heard nothing through his own earpiece as Agent Soldier: 76 tilted his head, dog-like, listening. “Roger that. The car’s been scanned and Athena’s cleared us to return. Right. Copy that.” He tapped at the side of his head once more and gestured at the car, inviting Hanzo to go first. As Hanzo pushed the door aside, he thought he heard Agent Soldier: 76 mutter something that sounded like “awkward car rides,” before his heavy footsteps began to follow, but surely such would not be audible through the mask.

 

Hanzo’s limbs were taut with nervous energy at the unexpected presence of his brother. Despite his trepidation, he was ultimately thankful it took only a few moments for Genji to step out of the darkness, much as he had those months ago. It allowed little time for him to work himself up into something regrettable.

 

Time did seem to pause for a spare moment when Genji appeared on the roof of a building directly across from Hanzo and Agent Soldier: 76, fading into view where Hanzo could clearly see him--an improvement, he thought sourly, on many of Genji’s former debuts.

 

The pause was trivial and interminable for one agonizing second. Genji was framed against a background of grey with the barest hue of pink--a cloud bank had crept across the sky, and it was catching the first rays of the hidden dawn. It did his appearance no favors for Hanzo’s peace of mind. The dark sinew of the exposed artificial muscle on each side of his torso was nearly lost in the gloom, leaving the silvery carapace looking like it was missing enormous chunks. Genji’s--running lights?--were off, the lines and circles faded into black pockmarks.

 

It took months, thought Hanzo distantly. _Months._

 

Genji broke into movement with practiced grace, dropping the two stories off the roof and onto the ground with only the barest whisper of sound, betrayed by the dry brush crunching underfoot as he absorbed the drop in a crouch. He stood to his full height immediately and strode forward. It took effort, but Hanzo did not permit himself to break his own stride or his neutral expression. Agent Soldier: 76’s warning may have been good for something after all.

 

They met in front of the car, halting face-to-face two meters from each other. There were a few seconds of stony silence. Hanzo waited for Genji to take the initiative and establish the tone for this meeting.

 

He finally did.

 

“You look terrible.”

 

Hanzo sucked in a breath through his nose as surreptitiously as he could. He really should have expected Genji to say something so blunt, but he doubted he would ever be adequately prepared to hear anything his brother said again.

 

Genji tilted his head, similar to Agent Soldier: 76, as the unlit flattened V of his visor studied Hanzo’s face and figure. Hanzo’s legs trembled slightly under his examination.

 

“Seriously, you look awful. Have you--no, I know you haven’t eaten or slept. Am I wrong?”

 

Genji seemed to making an effort at keeping his tone light, but his voice held a fine rueful edge.

 

“I have rested. I have not eaten,” Hanzo replied, focusing just above the visor to avoid the dead black line.

 

“Good. Good. That’s better than I expected.”

 

Hanzo nodded slightly.

 

Silence.

 

It was broken by Agent Soldier: 76 clearing his throat. “I’ll drive,” he announced, moving noisily to the car. “Agent Shimada, front seat. Genji, back seat. Keep a lookout for anyone following.”

 

Neither brother acknowledged him verbally. Hanzo bowed his head and moved around the side of the car, hardly hearing the sounds of Genji following. He slid into the passenger seat, waving a hand to drive off the buzzing insects to try to shut out as many as possible. He politely ignored Agent Soldier: 76’s dark mutterings as he scooted the seat back to accommodate his tall frame--the car was evidently not designed for someone his size.

 

Genji opened the back door and Hanzo had to repress the urge to turn and reach back to move the cello case out of Genji’s way--he must not make any sudden movements or attempt to access any of his belongings until given explicit permission to do so. Genji adjusted the case and sat down. There was an unexpected thunking noise that made Hanzo glance at the rearview mirror. The old soldier’s seat adjustments had apparently made it impossible for the hard case to slip down to the floor, so Genji was allowing the neck to rest on his head, held in place by one of the peculiar horn-like appendages on his helmet. Hanzo looked away.

 

“My apologies,” he murmured over the noise of Agent Soldier: 76 settling into the driver seat and adjusting the steering wheel to clear his long, thick legs. “I--do not believe there is room in the trunk for it.”

 

“It’s alright,” Genji said dismissively, still aiming to sound light. “If I get a crick in my neck, I’ll know who to blame.”

 

Hanzo tried not to put too much significance on the obvious small joke, but he could not help but inwardly scoff.

 

Agent Soldier: 76 started up the engine and the car lifted off. He did not engage the autopilot, instead steering the car himself out of the square and heading further uphill into the mountains. The paved road soon met and paralleled the swollen creek that must have helped carve out the river valley, at times dangerously close to being washed away by the torrent just at its side.

 

No one said anything for a long time. Hanzo obeyed Agent Soldier: 76’s directive and kept watch through the near-darkness as best he could. The sky above was embroiled in a struggle between the approaching dawn and the gathering clouds, and at the moment the clouds were winning, darkening their surroundings as they thickened overhead.

 

Agent Soldier: 76 followed the road for five or six kilometers to a junction of both roads and valleys where three streams united into one. “It’s going to be bumpy for here on out. Hang on,” he warned before he drove off the road and through the light foliage, aiming for the smallest and narrowest of the valleys. The antigrav pods whined as they strove to cushion the car over the bumpy ground, but they were only partially successful. There was another hard thunk as the cello case slid off of Genji’s head and thudded against the hard metal of his leg.

 

“Ride ‘em, cowboy,” said Genji, doing a passable impression of the cowboy’s drawl. Then, in a clumsy segue, he continued with, “Speaking of which, how’s McCree been treating you? He says you’ve been doing good work. Has he been doing the same?”

 

Hanzo narrowed his eyes. What? He opened his mouth, hesitated, but there was no way to ask the question delicately. “Have you not been monitoring our communications as you said you would?”

 

Genji huffed. “I _said_ I wouldn’t if you didn’t want me to.”

 

“I had no preference,” said Hanzo, trying to keep his voice even.

 

“Yeah, I remember you said that. You didn’t mean it, but that’s what you said.”

 

Hanzo grit his teeth before he forced his jaw to relax.

 

“So? Has he been treating you alright?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Genji made a noise that may have been a modulated click of his tongue. “Has he--76, help me out here. What should I ask to find out the truth?”

 

Hanzo scowled. Genji had been using English and Hanzo had followed suit, thankful that his brother had thought to keep everyone present on the same page, but there was no excuse to involve Agent Soldier: 76 in _this_ discussion any more than necessary. “I am telling the truth,” he ground out. “What do you wish to know specifically?”

 

“Has he--I don’t know, has he been doing what he did before?! Has he been making your life hell like he was before? Tell me more than just ‘yes, yes, _yes,’_ alright?”

 

Hanzo took a moment to steady himself. “Alright,” he said when he felt he was ready. “He has been--professional.”

 

“Okay.” Genji’s voice was flat.

 

Hanzo fought to keep from rolling eyes at the one word response. “He has been courteous and helpful. He has given no indication of his earlier behavior.”

 

“Alright.”

 

“I believed--I believed that he was giving his best effort because you were monitoring him."

 

“Oh? So he sounded like he was faking?”

 

“No, he--” Hanzo considered for a few moments, going over his reports to the cowboy under the new light of their being--more private--than he believed. “If he is insincere, he has done well to conceal it. Before, his aim was to undermine me as much as possible without compromising Overwatch. To my knowledge, he has not done so since this mission began.”

 

Genji snorted. “Well. That’s better.”

 

“Is--” Hanzo snapped his mouth shut. He had been about to ask about one of the cowboy’s random stories and verify its authenticity--that might be a better indication of the cowboy’s true intentions than most anything--but he caught himself in time. If Overwatch suspected him of betrayal, then they would not be pleased to know that Hanzo had collected personal details of their agents--however unwillingly.

 

“Is that satisfactory?” he asked instead.

 

Genji did not answer for a short time. Then, quietly, “I guess.”

 

That was the last said by anyone until the transport came into view.

 

The narrow almost-slot canyon abruptly terminated, opening into a depression shaped like two cupped hands. With a pathetic whine from the antigrav pods, Agent Soldier: 76 drove up a short, steep embankment onto another road that led into the depression from elsewhere. It was a simple dirt road that was in all the worse condition for being unmaintained and unpaved, with deep troughs carved into its muddy surface by rivulets from the frequent rains. Nevertheless, he accelerated, anxious, perhaps, to escape his prophecy come true of an awkward journey.

 

The road wound sinuously between some small hills before straightening as it climbed towards another small rise, similar to the one that held the village square. And indeed, a plaza did come into view, far larger and with a low wall running around its perimeter made of what was once ornately carved and polished soapstone. Now, however, much if not most of the wall was cast down, leaving large gaps that rivaled the intended entrance, a ceremonial gateway with a high shingled roof crowned by a decorative ridge. It had fallen long ago, split in half and leaving only a single wooden column standing at a slight, drunken angle.

 

Beyond, the former temple and its outbuildings, made of soapstone and granite, were thrown down, overturned, scattered, and displaced--what could be seen of them. There were several outcroppings of trees and foliage that were suspiciously box-shaped and likely hid former dormitories, smaller shrines, and other facilities. The transport, hatch sealed and landing lights off, stood on the far side of the plaza in front of a great pyramid of trees and gnarled roots that was all that could be seen of the central hall.

 

Agent Soldier: 76 parked the car just inside the ruined gate, the antigrav pods whirring softly as they settled on the cracked flagstones. All three men climbed out, with Genji swinging the cello case onto his back as the green running lights of his carapace flickered on with a faint electric hum. Hanzo hid a grimace at the artificial sound.

 

As he anticipated, Agent Soldier: 76 went straight to the trunk to retrieve the security subsystem. He doubted he would be entrusted with it or another one again--but it remained to be seen whether the old soldier would also prefer to carry the pack and suitcase to keep them well away from Hanzo or if he would have him carry his own belongings for fear of a bomb or similar.

 

After a beat or two he had made no move towards either the pack or the suitcase, and the Orca’s hatch remained sealed. Hanzo walked back towards the trunk and gestured at his things, standing well back, “May I?”

 

The agent nodded. “Go for it.”

 

Hanzo did his best to handle both the pack and the suitcase as minimally as possible, keeping his hands away from the zippers and compartments as he slung the pack on his back and hefted the suitcase out.

 

They set off across the plaza. Agent Soldier: 76 allowed Hanzo to walk slightly ahead of him once more. Hanzo was sure he was once more scanning their surroundings. Genji, on the other hand, was walking at Hanzo’s side, almost in lockstep, though his posture was far more relaxed.  They passed a sunken pit that may have been a pond or bathing pool for adherents to ritually cleanse themselves, now choked with lilies and lotus plants. The insects were back in full force, but Hanzo paid them little mind--he was used to enduring them.

 

As they approached the sealed hatch, Agent Soldier: 76 suddenly said, “Soldier: 76 reporting, sir. Are we clear?”

 

“You’re clear, Soldier: 76,” replied Winston’s deep bass, in Hanzo’s earpiece as well, surprising him. Was the gorilla _here?_ “There’s no sign of pursuit or detection. Come on in!” The hatch hissed and unfolded as the yellow forcefield bubbled over it and the interior lights came on. Hanzo furrowed his brow. How long had everyone inside been waiting in the dark?

 

“Yo! Welcome back!”

 

Agent Lúcio was--smaller--than Hanzo expected. His frame was strong and wiry, but still--he was small. His dreadlocks were gathered into a high ponytail that Hanzo suspected was an attempt, conscious or not, to add a dozen centimeters or so to his height, but otherwise he barely came up to Hanzo’s shoulders.

 

It was undoubtable his voice and personality that led Hanzo to misjudge his physical stature.

 

“No one follow you?” he crowed as he almost bounced down the hatch right into the open, wearing a two-tone green sleeveless sport jersey with some sort of a frog logo on the chest, green-and-blue nylon running pants, a complicated, geometric frog tattoo on his exposed left arm, and an attractive, wide smile on his handsome, dark face. “No one get an eye or tail on the ninja archer? Of course not! C’mon, you gotta let us know how you did it!”

 

Close behind followed a young woman with long straight brown hair who was as short and wiry as Agent Lúcio, her toned arms thrown into sharp relief by a pink, blue, and white catsuit with sponsor decals emblazoned with hangul running down the sides. Song Hana, or Agent D.Va, the famed Korean gamer turned soldier.

 

Both agents gave friendly nods of welcome to Genji and Agent Soldier: 76, but most of their attention was on Hanzo. He had to fight from stepping back from under their open curiosity, though Agent D.Va had a more restrained, thoughtful look, which was at odds with the persona she seemed to craft in the videos and livestreams Hanzo had discovered from the odd bit of research he had been able to do since reading her personnel file.

 

Agent Lúcio apparently did not possess or chose to show as much restraint.

 

“Hey! Lúcio Correia dos Santos! What’s up?” he exclaimed, clapping a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder and seizing his hand for a hearty shake, almost pulling Hanzo into a hug. For a brief moment, Hanzo thought the agent was about to press a greeting kiss on his cheek, and he desperately cast about in his head if Brazilians kissed once, twice, or thrice--he was from Rio de Janeiro, was he not? Was that two?--but Agent Lúcio pulled back, grin unfaltering. “Come and meet Hana!”

 

Agent D.Va stepped up and offered a bow of the head that was much more in line with Hanzo’s comfort level. He returned the bow and murmured, “Shimada Hanzo.”

 

“Genji’s brother,” she replied, with a small tilt of the head.

 

He stiffened slightly, but he managed to answer without hesitating. “Yes.”

 

“Hmm.” She looked him up and down with a contemplative look.

 

“C’mon, Winston wants to get a look at that Vishkar data you got,” said Lúcio, excited. He threw an arm across Hanzo’s shoulders and practically manhandled him up the ramp with surprising strength.

 

“Agent Soldier: 76 has the data,” Hanzo tried, his skin crawling under the young man’s overly familiar touch.

 

“Oh sure, but _you_ gotta tell us how you managed to duck out from under both Vishkar _and_ Talon’s noses--”

 

“Debriefing with the SC first, Agent Lúcio,” barked Agent Soldier: 76, following close behind.

 

“Yes, let’s get that done ASAP,” said Winston as Agent Lúcio guided Hanzo into the interior of the Orca, abruptly cutting off the sound of the insects around Hanzo’s ears as they passed through the forcefield. He _was_ here in person, waiting off to the side of the hatch, pressing a finger to the bridge of his glasses. He was dressed in what looked to be metallic body armor similar to what he wore when he helped to hunt Hanzo down, but without the bulky rocket-like appendages rising from his back. He shuffled forward as Hanzo and Agent Lúcio entered, his knuckles thudding on the deck plating before he offered an enormous hand to Hanzo. “Welcome back, Agent Shimada. You’ve done great work out there.”

 

Hanzo managed to overcome his great surprise to find the leader of Overwatch here and returned the handshake as best he could when the gorilla’s hand was easily two or three times larger than his own. Hanzo had a flash of memory to one of the first meetings he sat in on with his mother, a summit of sorts with Russian arms dealers when he was barely a teenager. They had all shaken hands at the beginning and the end of the meeting, and many of the Russians had been big, burly men whose hands dwarfed his then as the gorilla’s did now. It was an odd thing to think about, and Hanzo shook himself back into the present as Winston looked him over much as Agent D.Va had with a small frown. “Are--are you feeling alright, Agent Shimada?”

 

“Yes,” he answered instantly, though he frowned inwardly. Had he missed something, when he checked himself in the car’s mirrors before the rendezvous? He could expect Genji to scorn his appearance, that was nothing new, but this--

 

Then he remembered it was October, and he relaxed slightly. It was to be expected--there were simply people around him to point it out, now that he was in Overwatch’s employ.

 

Winston did not look convinced, but he did not pursue the matter further. Instead, he nodded and said, “We’ll debrief up on the second level. Go ahead and put your things away, I’ll meet you up there.” Hanzo nodded as Winston moved off towards the stairs. From behind his massive frame appeared the rec table.

 

Hanzo zeroed in immediately on the cowboy, who was getting up out of the loveseat. Beside him were two more people, another young East Asian woman with a round face, thick, rounded spectacles framing her eyes, and with most of her hair gathered into a bun held in place by a hairpin. She wore a white, cozy-looking longsleeved sweater, a very odd choice with the early morning Indian heat pouring in behind them. She was scooting down the loveseat, apparently following the cowboy.

 

Next to her was another familiar face that was nearly as surprising as Winston: Dr. Zeigler. She made eye contact with him and greeted him with a nod and a small wave of the hand. He nodded back primly.

 

Genji stepped forward to get his attention. “You want me to take care of your things? Since Lúcio doesn’t seem to want to let go?”

 

Agent Lúcio made no move to drop his arm off Hanzo’s shoulders. Instead, his grin turned mischievous. “Is that a hint, Genji? Getting jealous?”

 

“No, but my brother _is_ uncomfortable. He’s--” An odd pause. “--just too polite to say anything.”

 

“Really?” Agent Lúcio scrutinized Hanzo’s face for a moment. “Okay. If you say he is.” He patted Hanzo’s shoulder before swinging his arm away. “Sorry if I got too touchy-feely.”

 

“Not at all,” Hanzo assured him, trying not to roll his shoulders back to work out the lingering sensation of touch. He was more surprised by the lack of caution both he and Agent D.Va had shown, walking right out of a fortified position to meet what might be a Talon spy.

 

But now that he was free, he took the opportunity to go and place his pack and suitcase on the shelves since that was what was apparently expected rather than another immediate search. Genji accompanied him still, at his side with his cello case. “These are understanding people,” Genji said in a low voice as he stowed it away. “They’ll respect any boundaries you set.”

 

Hanzo set his jaw with a clink of his molars and nodded without looking at him, fidgeting with his suitcase a few moments longer than strictly necessary. “I am not uncomfortable,” he finally said, turning to face him, focusing slightly above the green-lit visor once more, a habit that gave little comfort but was quickly becoming the norm.

 

They stood there for a few seconds, neither saying anything, before the spurs of the cowboy approached.

 

“Genji, Agent Shimada. Everything look okay out there?”

 

“Yeah,” said Genji, lingering for a moment. He faced the cowboy just when Hanzo began to feel the same kind of scrutinization he had received from the Omnic nun and monk in Nepal. “Hanzo says you’ve been doing better,” he said calmly, to Hanzo’s mortification. “Thanks for that.”

 

“Oh! Uh, well, I, uh--I’ve been tryin’. You doin’ okay, Agent Shimada?”

 

Hanzo forced his embarrassment down and turned. “Yes, Agent McCree.” The cowboy looked--well. He was wearing his hat of course, along with a yellow buttondown shirt similar to Hanzo’s, with faded jeans tucked into those noisy cowboy boots. He had apparently been doing some work since Hanzo had seen him last. His beard, while still unruly by Hanzo’s standards, was more neatly trimmed, and the hair spilling out from under his hat looked more even and shinier and softer. His frame looked sturdier, as though some of his weight had been redistributed slightly. Hanzo could even detect a faint whiff of sandalwood cologne--the cowboy had not smelled of any particular thing before.

 

He wore a slightly wary expression, but Hanzo caught a flash of narrowed eyes when the cowboy focused on his face, though he hid it again soon enough.

 

The East Asian woman was hovering at his elbow. She had her hands folded in front of herself, and she was wringing one of her fingers nervously. Hanzo bowed his head at her. “Shimada Hanzo.”

 

“Hello!” she said in a rush of breath, clearly nervous, as she bobbed her head. An eight-pointed star charm attached to the hairpin helping to hold her hairbun in place swung crazily with every movement. “I’m Zhou Mei-ling! It’s a pleasure to meet you at last! Genji has told me so much about you!”

 

Hanzo was taken aback. “Has--he?” he could not help but question as he glanced at Genji, though he hardly knew why. It was not as though he could read Genji at all.

 

“Oh yes!” she replied, still nervous, but with a tremulous smile that was clearly as much for her benefit as his own. “I’m so glad he managed to find you! He’s been much happier than he was back in the old days. I didn’t recognize him at all when I first came back!”

 

“I--” began Hanzo with a bit of uncertainty. Agent Mei had rejoined the team recently, but she had still been a member of the old Overwatch. Did she not know about Genji’s history? She was nervous, but she did not seem disingenuous or to be masking her true feelings the way Agent Tracer had. “I believe you can credit Agent Zenyatta for that,” he said at last, watching her closely.

 

“Oh, yes, Zenyatta’s been good for him, too,” she said, her smile slowly losing its nervous edge and becoming more genuine. “But it’ll be good to have the entire family back together, won’t it?”

 

Hanzo could not help narrowing his eyes at _that,_ but the cowboy cleared his throat and said loudly, “We’d better get up t’Winston, Agent Shimada.”

 

“Of course,” he replied, a little distractedly, before he shook himself to get his attention firmly back on the business at hand. “It is good to meet you, Agent, ah--”

 

“Mei, Agent Mei,” she said with a short giggle. “Not very original, is it?”

 

“Hey!” blurted Genji.

 

She laughed again as she bowed her head and went back to the table.

 

Hanzo glanced at Genji again, but he turned to head up the stairs in lieu of saying anything. He was not surprised when the cowboy accompanied him--he could expect a shadow as long as he was a possible threat. What _was_ surprising was the rather informal reception he had found here--if Overwatch was suspicious of him, they would have done well to keep their agents well back from Hanzo and bundle him straight into an interrogation. Now nearly all their agents had been directly exposed to him.

 

Winston was waiting at the workstation to the right of the stairs, though he was sitting on the floor rather than try to fit into the chair there. He nodded at both Hanzo and Agent McCree as they approached. “Please sit down, Agent Shimada,” he said, waving at the chair. Hanzo obeyed, glad to take his weight off his bruised stubs, though it felt strange to be sitting in a chair while his superior sat on the floor. Winston was still eye-to-eye with him, though--even a little taller still. The cowboy, for his part, leaned against the console, legs crossed at the ankles and arms folded against his barrel chest.

 

“I’ve asked McCree to sit in,” said Winston with an almost apologetic air. “He knows much more about infiltrations than I do. I used to be pretty sneaky, believe it or not,” he said with a broad smile that showed off his impressive canines, “but not for a while.”

 

Hanzo nodded but said nothing more. Winston’s smile faded a little, and he coughed into one hand. “So, uh. Let’s start with your route through the Inner Ring, okay? Starting from when you entered stealth mode.” He placed his own comm on the floor in front of him, and, much as in the Niigata safehouse, a holographic map sprang up, showing a section of the Inner Ring with a blue marker blinking where Hanzo had waited in an out-of-the-way spot for permission to proceed.

 

Hanzo was about to speak when the cowboy broke in.

 

“Actually, Agent Shimada,” he said with a small smile, “Y’mind explainin’ what that detour into Mandlem was for? You sat in one place for about twenty minutes before you moved on again.”

 

Hanzo sighed internally. Yes, there would be a certain audacity if he made contact with Talon before he went into stealth mode rather than after, but it would also potentially throw off suspicion--unless a cowboy was involved, apparently. “During my previous inspection of Mandlem, I passed by the shop of an illegal animal trader,” he said calmly. “I purchased a chain viper from her.”

 

The cowboy fixed him with a look. “A chain viper?” he said incredulously, glancing at Winston. Then, of all the things he could have said or done, he surprised Hanzo with a slow smile. “You end up using it?”

 

Hanzo nodded wordlessly.

 

The smile turned into a grin. “Do tell.”

 

“I did not use it until I was trapped in the Central Administration bunker,” said Hanzo, a bit warily. The cowboy was trying _very_ hard to seem friendly.

 

“Let’s keep things chronological for the moment,” interjected Winston, “but I’ll admit: I’m looking forward to the snake. So, you entered stealth mode _here,_ close to Neerja Bhanot Boulevard. And from there?”

 

It was a pattern similar to his debriefing in the Niigata safehouse. Neither Winston nor the cowboy commented on his journey through the Inner Ring though Hanzo tried to include as much precise detail as possible to ward off any “blank spots” that could be filled in with whatever a suspicious mind could provide--though there was little he could do to prevent that if suspicion was paired with determination.

 

Both showed more interest when he came to the Satellite Campus--here was a potential blank spot where Hanzo had waited for some time on the overlook into the Campus, and Winston asked strange questions about whether Hanzo had any lapses of memory or felt like time had suddenly passed by too fast or without his noticing. Hanzo admitted to letting his mind wander somewhat as he waited for the twilight to fade, but it was hard to tell if that was the answer Winston was expecting, looking for, or wanted. He merely nodded with a rather stony expression and asked him to continue.

 

The cowboy, on the other hand, did not seem too worried about anything else until Hanzo came to the unlocked doors in the CA bunker.

 

“None of ‘em had locks?” he asked, his brows knitting together as he stared at the floating hologram, now morphed into a 3D model of the bunker provided by Agent Lúcio. “None of ‘em?”

 

Hanzo shook his head. “The external pressure door and the server room did. Otherwise the inner doors here, here, here, here, and here,” he listed off as he pointed to the battery room and the two stairways, “had nothing.”

 

The cowboy frowned. “That’s fishy. After Lúcio got in and out with so much, you’d think Vishkar would invest in some basic security measures.”

 

“Well, that _does_ seem to be a bit of a blindspot for them,” observed Winston, rubbing his chin with his thick fingers. “They’ll probably learn their lesson after tonight, though.”

 

“They should’ve learned their lesson the first time,” said the cowboy. “I’m worried they _did,_ but they only applied it t’more sensitive or important areas.”

 

Winston pressed his lips into a flat line. “Well, we’ll know soon enough. You were saying, Agent Shimada?”

 

“I accessed the server room and executed the hacking program on the comm. It took around--”

 

“Wait, was it that easy to access even the server room?!” interrupted Winston, looking almost aghast.

 

Hanzo hesitated. “I had to bypass a keypad and handprint scanner.”

 

“How?”

 

An almost instinctual urge to protect the secrets of the Shimada rose up in Hanzo, closing around his throat. It took an embarrassing few seconds to fight his way past it, because mysteriously bypassing Vishkar security was _not_ what he needed to imply right now, and surely Genji--

 

“Genji’s used his dragon t’fry electronics in the past,” the cowboy said into the silence with surprising gentleness. Hanzo fixed him with an impassive stare. The cowboy returned it steadily, unfolding his arms to hold his hands out in an apologetic shrug. “He used t’do it all the time in Blackwatch. He’s never explained _how_ exactly, just that it’s a dragon thing. You do something similar?”

 

Hanzo coughed, subconsciously trying to clear the hand of the clan grasped around his throat before answering, “Yes, that is exactly what I did.”

 

The cowboy nodded with a small ironic smirk as he exchanged a look with Winston.

 

“It’s good to know there was something a bit more substantial protecting the servers,” Winston said diplomatically. “How did the actual hacking go?”

 

“It took some time,” said Hanzo, relaxing somewhat now that they were moving away from the dragons. “More time than you estimated, in excess of ten minutes.”

 

“Oh, well,” said Winston, waving a hand dismissively. “You can only guess when it comes to things like that. If it took longer, we might’ve gotten more than we expected.”

 

Hanzo hummed noncommittally. “The program ran long, but it did finish just before the attack began. That was when it became apparent that something was going on outside, at any rate.” He described his actions up to overhearing the Vishkar agents in the freight entrance. Winston and the cowboy wore nearly identically grave expressions, a great feat considering Winston’s simian features.

 

Seeing them side-by-side, Hanzo found himself wondering in the back of his mind how great an effort it took Winston to learn human customs and behavior. How difficult was it for a gorilla, even a genetically-modified gorilla, to imitate human behaviors when it was difficult even for humans to acclimate to different cultures? Poor Uppalapati, for example, had had to endure a full week of Hanzo pointing one of his prosthetic feet directly at him as he sat on the patio of his tea stand. Hanzo had tried to take the opportunity to massage his stumps to try to lessen the phantom pain, and while he noticed the dirty looks some of Uppalapati’s customers threw him (and often scrambled to listen in on them with the Moth to try to figure out why), Uppalapati himself took the grave insult in stride, allowing Hanzo to build a rapport with him until he could tactfully bring the subject up with a minimum of fuss. He had grown much in Hanzo’s estimation that day.

 

He returned his full attention to the matter at hand when Winston unexpectedly laughed as he described throwing the viper as a distraction. “I would never,” he said, still chuckling, “have thought to do that, Agent Shimada. What an interesting tool to have at your disposal.”

 

Hanzo shrugged slightly. “I have utilized Japanese pit vipers before,” he said quietly. “They are a well known hazard, and have been useful in distracting guards without giving away that an intruder is nearby. India has many more venomous snakes, so I thought that it may be effective here also.”

 

“We used t’use rattlers as guard dogs, y’know,” the cowboy said, grinning.

 

“Really?” gasped Winston, eyes widening.

 

“Sure. We’d bury heaters just under the sand ‘round storage bins and trailers t’bring ‘em in at night. They were great at multitaskin’. They’d rattle when someone got close and bite if they got _too_ close. Puts you in the habit of wearin’ tall boots, I’ll tell you _that,_ ” he finished, tapping one boot with the other, the spurs clinking softly.

 

“Amazing,” said Winston, shaking his head. “What will people be using next?”

 

“Well, you _hope_ they stick t’rattlers,” answered the cowboy with a slight faraway look.

 

“Hm. So you threw a snake at them and made a dash for the teleporter. No one saw, not even from outside the entrance?”

 

Hanzo shook his head. “No one who raised the alarm before I went through.”

 

“Where was the exit point?”

 

It took a few minutes to find it--Hanzo had not had an exact fix on the location of the dormitories as he fled--but he managed to work his way backwards from where he found the rental car to the trio of skyscrapers that apparently housed dozens if not hundreds of Vishkar employees. The cowboy whistled softly when Hanzo finally hit upon the location; it was clear even from the 3D model that Hanzo had been extraordinarily lucky to find no one in his way. But all three agents sobered when they saw the distance that he had had to cross before getting out of sight. The big unknown here was the surveillance systems watching the courtyard--Hanzo’s camouflage suit had an unavoidable delay when adjusting to new surroundings.

 

A smaller unknown was the teleporter itself: what kind of tracking system might it utilize? Teleporters were immensely energy-intensive, so monitoring systems were ordinarily not included in the teleporter itself--every drop of power was dedicated to maintaining the wormhole. That did not necessarily preclude something as simple as a counter, however, a counter that might also record timestamps and direction of travel, but that was likely all. Any other tracking would be the purview of completely different systems, such as video surveillance and controlled access--as the courtyard might employ.

 

“If you were seen,” said Winston thoughtfully, “no one has said so, but Vishkar and the Indian Armed Forces haven’t released most of the details, so who can know for sure?” He was quiet for a few moments as he looked over the Vishkar dormitories thoughtfully. “It’s just such poor timing,” he lamented. “If we got anything useful on Vishkar, we’ll have to be careful how we use it, now.”

 

Hanzo narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

 

Winston smiled ruefully. “We’d hoped,” he said, “to recover information that would give the Indian Ministry of Corporate Affairs cause to investigate and confirm Vishkar’s underhanded and illegal activities. That, in turn, would encourage both India and Brazil to cooperate their efforts via the Security Council at the UN--with appropriate thanks to _us_ for bringing such activities to their attention, of course.”

 

“But now--” said Hanzo slowly, “that information is tainted.”

 

Winston looked uncomfortable. “Not through any fault of yours, Agent Shimada, but--but yes,” he admitted, downcast. “It was already going to take careful maneuvering to pass this information on to the Indian government. If it’s revealed that we just so happened to get it during a terrorist attack, Vishkar’s government allies may try to paint us as collaborators. _Talon_ would, if they didn’t--they’d jump at the chance to discredit us.”

 

Especially, thought Hanzo suddenly, if they knew exactly _who_ had stolen that information in the first place.

 

If Vishkar had seen Hanzo, if Vishkar could _identify_ Hanzo, and then it was revealed that he was in the employ of Overwatch, then _Talon_ would be in a position to discredit or even blackmail Overwatch by claiming an association, however distant, with Hanzo through the Shimada-gumi. It was only his word, and his alone now that the clan was gone, that the Shimada-gumi had wanted nothing to do with Talon--it would be bad enough that Hanzo was an assassin and former yakuza, but to be an alleged collaborator with terrorists might damage Overwatch’s aspirations irreparably.

 

He was immediately at war with himself. Overwatch likely (and rightly) suspected him of involvement with Talon, yet they could have no evidence--if he admitted to having had contact with the terrorist organization in the past, it would make it all the likelier that he might be in league with them now.

 

But if he did not admit it now, and Overwatch went forward with its plan and everything was all exposed with Talon as the main spokesperson of the whole affair--

 

He pursed his lips tightly.

 

But then he thought of his conversation with the cowboy at the Niigata safehouse.

 

_I owe Overwatch. Because of them, Genji lives, and so does this chance at redemption._

 

He could almost smell the crushed cedar needles underfoot.

 

He was sworn to Overwatch by Genji, it was true. But he owed Overwatch more than just loyalty for what they had done to correct his biggest mistake. Even if it endangered him.

 

Even if it cost him everything.

 

“The information,” he said quietly, “may become useless regardless.”

 

Both Winston and the cowboy skewered him with shocked and wary looks, respectively.

 

“What?” asked Winston uncertainly.

 

Hanzo took a deep breath to fortify himself. “If my involvement with this--with Overwatch--comes to light, Talon may claim that I have had past dealings with them--and they would be correct.”

 

Winston’s jaw dropped open slightly. The cowboy’s face went blank, forcefully blank, though he kept sharp eyes on Hanzo, almost daring him to continue.

 

“They approached the Shimada-gumi in hopes of brokering an alliance,” Hanzo continued, focusing beyond both the gorilla and the cowboy and forcing himself to speak past the constriction that once more squeezed around his throat. “They dared to approach the _kumichō_ not once, but twice, both my mother and myself. We rebuffed their advances.”

 

Winston let his breath out in a whoosh. “You did?” he said, the words thick with relief. “That’s--”

 

“Why?” the cowboy cut in sharply. He showed no relief, no change at all. His face was still blank.

 

Hanzo met his gaze full on. “The Shimada-gumi were powerful, secure, and influential--it was easy to see why Talon craved an alliance and difficult to see how the Shimada-gumi would benefit,” he said, trying not to sound defensive, trying not to justify the actions of a pitiless and bloody criminal empire. “International terrorism was one of the few things that might have overpowered the clan’s influence in the national government.”

 

He paused for a moment, then, bitterly, “We even had the support of every clan elder when we rejected them.” A spark of surprise flitted across the cowboy’s face, but Hanzo went on without acknowledging it. “They agreed with us full heartedly, for once. Why jeopardize the work of generations for a single, highly volatile source of income? Talon hinted that an alliance would provide many more opportunities than were apparent on the surface, but the temptation was insufficient. We rejected their offers and forbade our partners and subordinates from dealing with them as well.”

 

Hanzo did _not_ say how his mother had smugly observed that this did far more to limit Talon’s activities in the Far East than any legitimate agency’s efforts had. That was likely Talon’s true goal, really--it was easy enough to make headway in the underworld if one took advantage of the infighting and power struggles that constantly erupted over the dens and stashes of guns, drugs, and money, but the Shimada-gumi beat them to it, culminating with Shimada Rumi and her artful manipulation of the chaotic conditions of the Omnic Crisis. Talon could not hope to compete, and both they and the Shimada-gumi had known it.

 

All he said was, “You can see, then, how Talon might wish to play up my past with them, to settle the score with me and to harm Overwatch.”

 

The cowboy’s face morphed into something equal parts thoughtful and perplexed. “When was the last time you had contact with ‘em?”

 

Hanzo scowled slightly. “December of 2065,” he said, trying not to allow his voice to sound too sour.

 

Talon had waited exactly one year and one day after his mother and father’s deaths to renew their offer.

 

Winston drummed his fingers loudly on the floor as he digested this latest piece of Hanzo’s unsavory past. “That really does complicate things,” he mused aloud, staring off into space.

 

The cowboy, for his part, observed Hanzo for a few seconds more before he turned to Winston. “It’s been almost eleven years,” he ventured. “Talon’s leadership and cell structure have always been turbulent, and information sharing’s a crapshoot with ‘em. There ain’ no guarantee that anyone who dealt with the Shimada or _thought_ t’deal with the Shimada is still alive or involved with them.”

 

“There’s no guarantee either way,” Winston groused. “What we need to know is whether Agent Shimada was recognized. If he wasn’t, then we’ll still have to figure out how to expose Vishkar without burning ourselves, but it’ll be doable. If he _was,_ then we might have to throw it all out and start again.”

 

It felt like a stone dropped on Hanzo’s chest. To start _again,_ from _nothing,_ and throw everything he had done away _\--_

 

“One thing’s for sure, though: Agent Shimada is at risk.”

 

Hanzo managed not to scoff, but it was a close thing. It was an irrational response, anyway--he _was_ at risk. It was simply unusual to hear it from someone else--especially from a gorilla.

 

The cowboy bit his lip for a moment. “It’s always best t’lay low after a mission like this, but it’s all the more essential t’stay out of sight now,” he said thoughtfully. “Whaddaya think, Winston? Maybe we should bring him back t’Gibraltar, put him under house arrest for a few weeks.”

 

Hanzo stiffened, despite the brave attempt at a joking tone and the _wink_ from the cowboy. “That would be inappropriate,” he said instantly, cutting off Winston. “Excuse me,” he apologized, bobbing his head at him, “but the last place I should be is _anywhere_ associated with Overwatch.”

 

Winston frowned, opened his mouth to say something, stopped, then said, “I-- _nominally_ agree. Given that we just don’t know so many things, it would be most prudent to keep you separated from us, for plausible deniability if nothing else.”

 

Hanzo had barely enough time to register the-- _disappointed?_ \--look on the cowboy’s face before Winston drew himself up. “However,” he said seriously, “you had a similar reaction to the idea of a rescue team being sent for you, and I will reiterate what I said then: that’s not the way we think at Overwatch. You have agreed to certain responsibilities to Overwatch, and _we_ reciprocate responsibility for you. If you are in danger, _we will respond._ You were sent on an Overwatch mission, and now we are responsible for dealing with the consequences, good or ill.” He paused for a moment, looking hard at Hanzo, scrutinizing him.

 

“That being said,” he continued in a low voice, “I do want to keep _your_ wishes in mind. Your--recruitment--still gives me pause. The main reason I approved the infiltration is because you volunteered. I--” he paused again. His nostrils flared and he sat back, a considering look on his face. “I have tried,” he said again, watching Hanzo closely, “to assign you the least dangerous work I could think of. I have not always succeeded,” he admitted with a sharp glance at the cowboy. The cowboy, for his part, bowed his head and bit his lip. “If everything had gone as planned, I would have run out all six months of your fieldwork having you inspect derelict Watchpoints and safehouses. I don’t know what I expected to happen at the end, but I didn’t believe I had the right to ask anything more dangerous of you. But that damned--excuse me--that Watchpoint: Niigata! It really threw a monkey wrench in everything, and to tell you the truth I haven’t really known what to do with you since. We-- _I_ exposed you to unacceptable danger--”

 

“Naw. It wasn’ you, Winston,” said the cowboy roughly, echoing Hanzo’s thoughts, as he stepped away from leaning on the console. “If I hadn’ been a--”

 

Winston drew himself up again. For a moment, Hanzo thought he was going to stand to his full height, but it was unnecessary. He was already as tall sitting as the cowboy was standing.

 

“I am the Strike Commander, Agent McCree. It is _all_ my responsibility,” he said, as though stating a well-known fact, looking the cowboy straight in the eye. The cowboy swallowed, nodded, and stepped back. Winston turned back to Hanzo. “I exposed you to unacceptable danger. You had every right to walk away from us after that, but you didn’t.”

 

Hanzo nearly protested, but Winston anticipated him.

 

“I know you have your reasons, and probably none of them have anything to do with Overwatch itself, but the fact remains: you stayed, and you showed exceptional skill and honor in the meantime.”

 

Hanzo could not help it; he snorted and looked away at the word _honor._

 

Winston said nothing for a few beats. “And then,” he said, apparently choosing to ignore Hanzo’s reaction, “You went on another difficult mission and performed admirably. You obtained critical information and you volunteered to obtain more despite the enormous risks, which turned out to be far higher than any of us could’ve predicted. In light of that, I think it’d be completely inappropriate to deny you Overwatch’s protection. It may be _best_ to keep you at arm’s length, but I don’t want to expose you to any more danger than necessary.”

 

Pressure built in Hanzo’s chest with Winston’s every word. It threatened to throttle his heart and crush his lungs, and to ward it off he blurted, “And the rest of your team? What about exposing _them_ to more danger than necessary?”

 

Winston reached up to his glasses, but rather than press against the bridge, he removed them, leaving his yellow eyes unobscured by the thick lenses. He fixed Hanzo with a earnest, almost pitying expression, which only intensified the pressure in his chest. “I think,” he said carefully and slowly, “that you’re speaking of only _one_ agent.” Hanzo sucked in a breath and looked away, focusing on the giant monitor looming over them all.

 

For a while, there was only the sound of their breathing and the strangely muffled sounds of the rest of the agents conversing below. Then, Winston gently broke the silence. “I suppose,” he said with an air of contemplation, “that I really should be more worried about the two of you. I _do_ worry, but in ways you might not expect.”

 

He shifted slightly closer to Hanzo as he spoke, but Hanzo refused to meet his eyes. “I don’t know what will happen between the two of you, of course, but it worries me even though a lot of it is none of my business. I worry about Genji and his wellbeing. We worked together a _lot_ in the old days--we made a surprisingly good team back then, and I considered him a friend. Since then--” Winston paused when his voice quavered a little. He cleared his throat. “Since then, he’s moved on from many things in his past, including many things and people he met in Overwatch. I think he had to, frankly. But I don’t begrudge him for it, because now he’s found a path. I’m relieved that part of it at least parallels Overwatch’s, but it’s more important that he has a _path,_ a way forward when before he couldn’t really care less about any particular direction unless it meant--”

 

Winston stopped and cleared his throat again, this time awkwardly as he shuffled on the floor. He soon found his voice again, though. “I don’t want to try to take that path away from him, now that he’s found it. The improvement is, uh-- _amazing,_ to say the least. I don’t want to compromise that for anything. And really, I’m surprised by how little I’ve come to worry about _you_ compromising it--deliberately at any rate.”

 

Hanzo raised shocked eyes to Winston’s steady gaze.

 

He nodded slightly. “I think Genji’s taking a great risk by doing this magnanimous thing for you, Agent Shimada,” he said. “But as time goes on, I find that I worry most about what _you’ll_ do to make things right--and what _he’ll_ do to give you the chance.”

 

Hanzo’s lips twitched, and he shook his head minutely. The idea that Winston would go to so much trouble for _him_ \--it was easy to believe that he would not trust him or even wish for him to do anything more compromising than inspect abandoned buildings, but to think that he was wringing his hands over him so? It was unnecessary, completely unnecessary.

 

“Your concern for those under your command is admirable,” he said quietly, “but you should prioritize those who merit it.”

 

“Ha!” scoffed Winston. “That isn’t how Ov--that isn’t how _I_ do things, Agent Shimada,” he said with a trace of self-consciousness, but he dropped it almost immediately as he declared, “So you’ll have to pardon me, but I _am_ the SC, so you’ll just have to learn to live with what I worry about, and one of those things is _you_ \--just not in the way you’d like me to.”

 

Hanzo had no idea how to reply to _that._

 

The silence stretched for an uncomfortable minute before Winston sighed and put his glasses back on, pressing them into the small bridge of his simian nose for a few seconds before looking back up at Hanzo. “This was all a longwinded, clumsy way of saying that I’m not opposed to bringing you back to Gibraltar with us, Agent Shimada. Even if Vishkar did see you, there’s no indication thus far that they’re tracking you. Athena’s checking your comm right now for any such tracking malware, but once we’ve confirmed it’s clean, you’re welcome to come and, uh, _lay low,_ as it were. But--” he said hedged, raising his hand to forestall another outright rejection from Hanzo, “--if you have a _viable_ alternative, I won’t obligate you to come. I’m _not_ going to just leave you in the middle of nowhere, but I suspect you might have somewhere to stay out of sight already. If it’ll do as well as Gibraltar--well.”

 

Hanzo opened his mouth to first thank Winston as was appropriate and then flatly reject any notion of going to Gibraltar, but he forestalled him once more. “I _will_ ask you to think about it,” he said authoritatively, squinting at him. “At least until Athena’s done scanning the comm. Athena? How long do you think that’ll take?”

 

“Thirty-six minutes,” said Athena concisely.

 

Winston blinked in what might have been surprise, but he recovered quickly. “Would you give it thirty-six minutes, Agent Shimada? Please?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips, but he could not deny such a request from a superior. He nodded, trying not to be curt--but probably failing. Winston appeared satisfied despite his failure.

 

“Thank you,” he said with sincerity. Then he shuffled off his haunches, leaning his weight back onto his knuckles. “Well! That should do for the debriefing, I think--unless you have anything more to add to your statement?”

 

Hanzo shook his head as he stood, hiding a wince as his bruises protested once more. “I do not believe so, though I will report it if I remember anything.”

 

Winston nodded agreeably. “I’ll let you know if I have additional questions, too. McCree? Anything you want to ask?”

 

The cowboy shook his head as well as he stood straight and stretched his arms above his head, untucking his shirt from his waist as he he groaned. “Naw,” he said simply.

 

“Alright. Athena, go ahead and take the privacy screen down.” Hanzo turned his head sharply, just in time to see a yellow forcefield covering the stairs deactivate. The volume of the agents’ voices rose sharply--Agents Lúcio and D.Va appeared to be discussing something rather loudly. “You should take the opportunity to get to know your fellow agents,” said Winston brightly, gesturing down the stairs with an enormous hand. “They’ve been very curious about you.”

 

Hanzo tried not to blanche. “Agent Lúcio has been asking for details about this mission,” he said slowly after desperately casting about for an excuse not to mingle.

 

“Yes, he was really looking forward to it,” said Winston with a chuckle. “You might want to compare notes on the interior of the bunker--he might have an insight into something McCree and I overlooked.” He smiled at Hanzo--but something in his face made the smile turn fretful. “Unless--well.”

 

Hanzo sighed internally. It was a good idea, unfortunately, and he would not force Winston to backtrack. “I will speak to him,” he said smoothly. Winston nodded uncertainly, but before he could say anything more Hanzo turned away and walked down the steps, followed by the jingle of the cowboy’s spurs.

 

He did not have to approach Agent Lúcio--Agent Lúcio’s face lit up when he saw Hanzo and he immediately jumped up from the rec table and rushed over. “All done? How’d it go?” he asked excitedly.

 

“Well,” Hanzo replied, bracing for the young man to take hold of him in some way, though all he did was hover. He seemed to need something to do with his hands, however--he was twisting them together in front of his chest as he nearly _beamed_ at Hanzo.

 

“All right! C’mon, sit down, let’s talk!” And he did touch Hanzo then, pressing a hand to his back and steering him towards the rec table.

 

It was crowded. Everyone not involved in the debriefing was there, Agents D.Va, Mercy, Mei, Soldier: 76--and Genji, who sat in the corner, between Agents Mercy and Mei. Agent Lúcio pushed Hanzo, albeit gently, to scoot onto the seat next to Agent D.Va. It was difficult to tell what she thought of that--she had a small but pleasant smile as she nodded in greeting, but did nothing more. Lúcio then trapped Hanzo between them, bouncing Hanzo up and down as he plopped down on the gel cushion.

 

“So! You got the drop on both Vishkar _and_ Talon!” Agent Lúcio began with zero preamble. “Tell us all about it!”

 

Hanzo swallowed and glanced at the cowboy as he slid into the loveseat next to Agent Soldier: 76. He did not miss the tightlipped smile he gave the old strike commander as he sat, but he refocused on Hanzo soon enough.

 

“I--” said Hanzo hesitantly. “I do not know if it is prudent to discuss it so openly.”

 

Agent Lúcio waved his hand energetically enough almost to smack into the coffee mugs arranged on the shelf behind them. “Aw, c’mon! We’re all Overwatch here, right? What d’you think, McCree?”

 

The cowboy chuckled. “I don’ think it’ll do any harm,” he said. “I’ll stop ya if you start t’say anything you shouldn’, Agent Shimada.”

 

Hanzo nodded slowly as he shifted slightly, trying not to impinge on Agent D.Va’s space. “Very well,” he said, taking what he hoped was a clandestine yet deep breath to center himself before turning back to Agent Lúcio. “How should we begin?”

 

“We-e-e-e-ell,” said Agent Lúcio in an almost singsong voice as he looked up at the ceiling as he considered Hanzo’s question. “We decided on you going through the battery room, right? But you were a little hazy on how you were gonna get there in the first place. Start there! How’d you get into the Campus?”

 

Hanzo had no idea where to look as he recounted finding the overlook and the long jump over the wall. It had been quite some time before he had held the attention of so many people at close quarters outside of a fight. He tried his best to focus on Agent Lúcio, though it meant being turned away from everyone else at the table. Nevertheless he was uncomfortably aware of each person’s gaze, though they only ranged from neutral (Dr. Ziegler) to enthusiastic (Agent Lúcio)--those he could see, that is. He was almost grateful that Agent Soldier: 76 was sitting at the table and provided a expressionless visor besides Genji’s--he tended to focus on the person in the room who gave the least signals and thus had the most to hide, but Genji was not hard to read by choice.

 

Unfortunately, the other people at the table felt free to break in with questions whenever they saw fit.

 

“How far was the drop?!” gasped Agent Mei, a hand over her mouth.

 

Hanzo shrugged slightly. “About ten meters or so.”

 

“It’s not the drop that’s the hard part, though,” Genji cut in. “It’s getting the speed to cross the horizontal distance, and stopping yourself when you land without breaking your ankles, and your knees, and your--everything, really.”

 

“Wow,” Agent Mei breathed. “And no antigrav to help out? That’s amazing.”

 

“It is,” Genji agreed, nodding his head as he leaned forward and set his arms on the table with metallic clinks.

 

Dr. Ziegler leaned forward, too, her neutral face deepening into a frown. “How are your legs feeling, Mr. Shimada?” she asked. “They must have taken quite a beating.”

 

“They are fine, thank you,” he said, trying to ward off her concern. The bruises were getting more tender as time went on, but they did not feel any more serious than usual. He might feel better if he took off his prosthetics, but it was a gamble--inflammation often set in, making it a struggle to put them back on and sometimes nearly impossible to walk.

 

She did not look convinced. “I didn’t realize you were going to do something so strenuous,” she said, glancing at the cowboy. “It might be best to do a full post-op exam.”

 

It was difficult to decide which was more undesirable, this conversation or a medical exam, so Hanzo did not try. “If you believe it is necessary, Dr. Ziegler.”

 

“Hold up!” exclaimed Agent Lúcio, leaping out of his seat. Hanzo only barely resisted the automatic urge to scoot away a little from Agent D.Va. “All you really need is some ‘Rejuvenescência’! Here, gimme a sec and I’ll go grab my gear out of the--”

 

“Whoa there!” interrupted the cowboy, holding up both hands. “That music of yours is just what the doctor ordered--in combat. But Angie takes over when we’re all nice and relaxed--less scars that way.”

 

“Speaking from experience, McCree?” grinned Agent Lúcio as he plopped back down, making Hanzo bounce again.

 

The cowboy gave a slow smile in response. “There mighta been a few times when I didn’ want t’explain nothing.”

 

“Ach, don’t I know it!” said Dr. Ziegler, rolling her eyes and shaking a loose fist at the cowboy. “Even though you _knew_ you’d end up explaining anyway the next time I got a hold of you!”

 

“But you couldn’ do anything about it by then,” rebutted the cowboy, his smile thinning slightly.

 

Dr. Ziegler huffed again. “Excuse me,” she said to Agent D.Va as she stood, causing all three agents to her right, including Hanzo, to press back against their seats to allow her to pass. Only then did Hanzo realize that he had been sitting stiffly upright, not allowing his back to touch the backrest. He scowled slightly at how unnatural that must look, and he made sure to keep leaning back after Dr. Ziegler had safely passed by.

 

Before anyone could say anything else, Winston’s voice came floating down the stairs. “Hey, Genji?” he called. “Lena says she’s getting eaten alive out there. Would you mind taking her place on the perimeter?”

 

“Of course,” Genji called back.

 

“Thanks!”

 

“I said ‘Of course,’ as in, ‘Of course I mind’,” Genji shot back. “Torbjörn’s doing fine, and I was out there almost as long as she was, and I never complained about the bugs!”

 

It was faint, but Hanzo thought he could hear Winston sigh.

 

“Could that be because you’re hermetically sealed?”

 

Genji tilted his head. “Oh yeah! Yeah, that might be why. Okay! I’ll go.” He stood and moved past Hanzo and Agents D.Va and Lúcio as well.

 

Hanzo could not help pressing back much more forcefully than he had for Dr. Ziegler, nor could he help his shoulders dropping every-so-slightly now that he did not have to avoid Genji’s visor’s unblinking gaze.

 

He was glad for the warning about Agent Tracer’s imminent arrival, too--he was wound up enough that he might have had another unfortunate reaction when she came blinking through the hatch before Genji was even halfway across the floor, coughing and sputtering

 

“Pleh!” she spat, “Pleh, bleh, ugh! That bloody bug spray does _nothing!_ ” She had her aviator’s jacket completely zipped with the collar popped, leaving only the upper half of her face exposed, with most of _that_ covered by her goggles, but she was still patting--nearly slapping--at her own face. “They were _crawling into my jacket,_ the bloody bastards!”

 

Hanzo frowned at the sight of two strange accessories fastened to Agent Tracer’s forearms--they rudimentally resembled plastic wristguards of some kind, but with large swept-back fins dropping down from the bottom. He could only guess at their function, but at the moment it looked as though Agent Tracer was having to avoid smashing either one of them into her own mouth as she almost flailed despite the complete lack of insects within the Orca.

 

It took him a few moments to realize Genji was laughing.

 

He was standing off to Agent Tracer’s side, his arms folded across his chest and his head thrown back, and he was laughing, a picture perfect rendition of the silent memories of his brother, cloaked in metal.

 

The sound of it was muted by his helmet, but it smote at Hanzo as effectively as a kick to the chest. It sounded--deliberate. Less boisterous, less brazen than it should. More controlled.

 

It did not fit the memory of his brother at all.

 

Genji patted Agent Tracer on the shoulder, unaware of Hanzo’s sudden intense stare. “Ha! It seems the battle was hardfought,” he said with mock-seriousness.

 

“Aw, shut up, Genji,” muttered Agent Tracer, though she did seem to try to calm herself. “When was the last time you had to worry about bug bites and welts, huh?”

 

“Ah yes, I keep forgetting that you are only human.” Genji laughed again over Agent Tracer’s spluttering as he confidently walked out the hatch.

 

Hanzo clenched his jaw at his parting words. After a few seconds he drew in a deep breath to try to offset the tight paralyzing feeling in his chest.

 

Agent D.Va stirred at his side. She leaned forward onto the rec table and into Hanzo’s sight, folded her arms across her chest and fixed him with a piercing stare. “What happened to Genji?” she asked bluntly.

 

It all happened so quickly--he caught everything only with the practiced paranoid eye he had cultivated his entire life. Agent D.Va had spoken loudly, loud enough even for Agent Tracer to hear. Her head snapped around with the beginnings of a gaping expression. Agent Soldier: 76 brought a fist on the table; out of instinct or anger, Hanzo could not guess, but it startled Agent Mei, who flinched away. He heard Dr. Ziegler gasp somewhere off to his right. And Agent McCree, Agent McCree’s grin evaporated in a split-second, his lip curling into an ugly scowl.

 

Hanzo saw it all, and he headed it all off.

 

“I tried to murder him, but instead I mutilated him and left him for dead. He was saved by Dr. Ziegler and Overwatch, who built him a new body to replace what I destroyed.”

 

It was a peculiar feeling, saying it out loud. In the back of his mind, as he met Agent D.Va’s gaze steadily and waited for her reaction, he wondered if he had ever had the occasion to sum it all up so clinically and succinctly--he never explained it even to Dr. Sawaguchi when she replaced his legs.

 

Agent D.Va absorbed the confession with little visible change in her face besides a momentary widening of her eyes. Agent Lúcio, on the other hand, was not so reserved.

 

“ _What_ the _fuck?!_ ”

 

He jumped up from beside Hanzo and rapidly backed away, his jaw slack and eyes wide with shock. “ _Porra!_ ” he swore. “What--why is he--why is Genji--” Dr. Ziegler swooped down from the aft stairs and caught his arm with one hand while placing the other on his shoulder.

 

Agent Tracer seemed almost frozen in place, the first time Hanzo had seen her completely motionless. Agent Soldier: 76 bowed his head and clapped a gloved hand to his forehead.  Agent Mei’s lips were set in a colorless thin line, her face pale.

 

Agent McCree was scowling, but he could not seem to decide who to focus on, Hanzo or Agent D.Va.

 

The tense silence lasted for a few endless beats before it was broken by Agent D.Va again.

 

“Why?” she asked in a flat tone.

 

Hanzo answered with equal flatness. “He was considered an embarrassment to our clan.”

 

“Clan?”

 

“The Shimada-gumi.”

 

“Like, yakuza?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You guys were yakuza?”

 

“I was. Genji did not participate in clan business for some years before I mur--before I tried to murder him.”

 

She nodded, her long hair sliding over her shoulder and obscuring part of her face as she continued to lean nonchalantly against the rec table at his side. “How high level were you?”

 

“I was the _kumichō_ , _boseuga_.”

 

“Sooo-- _you_ decided to kill him?”

 

Hanzo swallowed thickly. Agent D.Va’s eyes did not waver in the least.

 

“The clan elders were united, so it was my duty.”

 

“So the clan elders decided to kill him and had you do it.”

 

Hanzo’s jaw clenched, but he wrested it back open to repeat, “I agreed to do it _._ ”

 

Agent D.Va nodded slightly. She cupped her chin in one hand in a surreally casual gesture. “So what the fuck are you doing here, then?”

 

I do not know, thought Hanzo, only just preventing himself from saying it out loud.

 

Instead, he considered the question for a pair of seconds, wondering how to phrase it, when Agent McCree answered for him.

 

“He’s here at Genji’s request and with Winston’s full knowledge of the events and his express permission,”  he said in a low, almost growling voice.

 

Agent D.Va raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

 

“That’s none of your bu--” Agent McCree snapped before he caught himself, breathing deep and saying in a more normal tone, “That’s between the three of them.”

 

“Really?” countered Agent D.Va skeptically. “Having a yakuza boss in Overwatch is no one’s business but theirs?”

 

“That’s what I jus’ said.”

 

“Nope,” she retorted, leaning back with arms folded across her chest. “Nuh uh. That’s something you don’t keep quiet. Does MEKA know you got a yakuza here?”

 

Agent McCree leaned back, too, matching Agent D.Va move-for-move and tipping his hat back for added effect. “I dunno. If I had to hazard a guess, probably not--and they probably don’ know a former gangster’s here, too.”

 

Agent D.Va barked out a short laugh. “Oh really? Who else?”

 

“Me,” he said simply.

 

Agent Lúcio let out a short moan. “ _What?!_ Not you, too, McCree!”

 

“Yeah, me,” Agent McCree confirmed with a slight smile. “So if you’re gonna be upset about Agent Shimada here, you gotta be just as upset about me.”

 

Agent Lúcio looked aghast. “You were just as bad as _him?_ ”

 

The cowboy’s smile faded. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Yeah, I was.”

 

Agents Mei, Tracer, and Mercy simultaneously objected.

 

“No! Nonono, how can you--”

 

“ _What_ are you _saying,_ you daft--”

 

“Don’t even _start,_ Jesse McCree--”

 

“That is ridiculous.”

 

Hanzo’s pronouncement shocked everyone into silence. Hanzo glared at the cowboy. What kind of play could the cowboy possibly be attempting? His supposed friendliness, telling tales of his comrades, _insisting_ on a rescue mission that Winston, even with his self-confessed handwringing, had to be reminded to organize, and now _this?_ Claiming an association with Hanzo based on their pasts? Absurd. Absurd!

 

Whatever this was, Hanzo would have none of it.

 

“You have not been involved in organized crime for twenty years, Agent McCree.”

 

The cowboy did not hesitate for even a split-second before he fired back. “You haven’ for ten, _Agent Shimada._ Time’s meaningless when I was in it as deep as you.”

 

Hanzo could not hold back his incredulity. “You were a _child._ ”

 

 _Then_ the cowboy looked surprised.

 

“You were a child,” repeated Hanzo, leaning forward and gesturing at him with an open hand despite himself. “You were barely eighteen when you were rescued by Overwatch. How old were you when you joined that gang of yours in the desert? Eleven? Twelve? A poor boy with little or no family, correct?” The cowboy’s face went slack; Hanzo counted it as close enough to the mark--that information was not in the cowboy’s personnel file, but Hanzo was all too familiar with how it must have happened.

 

“They persuaded you with gifts and grandiose promises and camaraderie before you even entered middle school. You were recruited and conditioned at your most vulnerable, and before long they had you keeping lookout.” Hanzo huffed irritably. “Did they at least wait until high school before they had you doing runs? Did they even allow you to attend high school? Or did the gang need you too much? They _relied_ on you and your talents by then, most likely. There was no one else that could help them like you could.” He barely paused before he continued, “Regardless, you were rescued right when you might have been barely culpable. Eighteen years old, and it’s been twenty years since then.

 

“I was twenty-eight.” He had to stop for a moment, to fight down the memories rising like bile in the back of his throat. “I was twenty-eight,” he said again. “That matters, Agent McCree. Do not throw yourself in with me when there is no comparison.”

 

Without waiting for the cowboy to reply, he turned back to Agent D.Va. “My membership is temporary. Genji wished for me to join Overwatch, but Winston was opposed. They compromised on a six-month period of fieldwork, away from the rest of Overwatch. This may be why MEKA was not informed, but I can only speculate. I apologize if my presence discomfits you, but you may be assured that Overwatch did not seek me out; they are extending a favor to Genji. That is the extent of our relationship.”

 

Agent D.Va regarded him coolly. “Hn.” Then she gestured at the open hatch. “You mind stepping out for a few minutes? I’ve got some things to discuss with Winston.”

 

If his younger self, he thought sourly, could see how low he had come. Effectively ordered to _get out_ by an upstart nineteen-year-old, and he most likely had to obey instead of performing some form of boxing her ears like he would have done in the past--but at the very least he watered down her authority by looking to the cowboy. “Agent McCree?”

 

The cowboy bit his lip. “Any discussion about Agent Shimada can include--”

 

“Nope,” interrupted Agent D.Va as she stood and stretched. “My MEKA contains classified military technology, and I can’t discuss protecting it if he’s in the Orca.” She brushed by Hanzo and headed for the stairs. “So, if you wouldn’t mind.”

 

“You can just put up a privacy--” the cowboy began hotly, but Hanzo raised his hand.

“It is alright, Agent McCree, I can leave,” he said evenly as he stood, masking the pain in his stubs and his distaste for the order, though knowing the young agent’s alleged reason soothed the insult somewhat. “I do not wish to jeopardize Overwatch’s partnerships or security.”

 

“Oh, really?” broke in Agent Tracer angrily. “Coulda fooled me, with your ‘I killed my brother’ monologue with zero feeling or remorse!”

 

“Should I have lied, Agent Tracer?” he asked calmly as he approached, looking at her straight in the eye.

 

Zero feeling or remorse. As though confessing his crimes with no attempt to justify or excuse himself indicated either.

 

But Agent Tracer was among the few agents to be rightly suspicious of him and his motives, so it could only be expected she would interpret it that way.

 

She swallowed audibly, her anger now mixed with self-consciousness. “N-no! It’s just--Genji’s been saying that you were joining Overwatch for personal reasons! You should’ve left it at that!”

 

Hanzo stopped as he was passing her on his way out. He looked up at the ceiling as he breathed in and out. Genji had told him nothing. Had he simply forgotten as he so often did when they were younger? Or had Hanzo’s surliness during the journey here driven it from his mind? It was not as though Hanzo had indicated that he was receptive to hearing his brother’s words--the way he had reacted to his brother’s interrogation was proof of that.

 

He sighed. Agent Tracer was correct.

 

“I was not aware of that,” he admitted softly. Agent Tracer’s eye twitched. “Had I known--well. In the future I will adhere to his wishes. Excuse me.”

 

He passed through the hatch’s forcefield before anyone could say anything else. It surprised him that neither the cowboy nor Agent Soldier: 76 came trotting after to keep an eye on him--but he doubted that only Genji and Agent--Torbjörn? The short, muscular agent from the warehouse?--were watching the perimeter, so perhaps they were putting their faith in whatever security subsystem they had brought or perhaps directly in Athena herself to monitor him.

 

The sky above nearly pitchblack, the oncoming dawn thoroughly smothered by an ever-lower cloudbank that revealed itself with muted flashes of lightning somewhere very high above--the thunder followed a long time after each flash, and was comfortably muted. The wind was picking up in starts and bursts, sweeping in the smell of petrichor, tugging at his slacks and ponytail and raising a cacophony of rustling leaves, reeds, and twigs scraping and tumbling across the cracked stones of the plaza. A lone insect tried to buzz in his ear before it was swept away by the wind. All the others seemed to have gone to ground.

 

It all pointed to an oncoming deluge. Spectacular timing.

 

Hanzo stood at the bottom of the ramp and searched the ruins surrounding the plaza. The Orca was hovering high enough off the ground that, failing everything else, he could probably shelter from the rain underneath, but Agent D.Va would probably not appreciate him skulking around down there--he might be trying to stay in range of some listening bug or looking for an opportunity to access the cargo bay where her MEKA was likely stowed.

 

On the other hand, he must not wander off too far. He did not know where the perimeter was and had no desire to be caught “trying to run off”.

 

He spotted the remains of a portico off to the right. It was attached to some outbuilding that had been reclaimed by the forest creeping down the mountainside. The building itself might serve as a windbreak, and there was enough left of the portico’s roof to block the worst of the rain.

 

But given that this was probably Hanzo’s last chance to watch an Indian monsoon storm--and how he was feeling--he could not muster up too much of an objection to getting soaking wet.

 

He headed for the portico, casting a wary eye on the roof a meter or two above his head before choosing the lee of a great square column to kneel beside, settling into _seiza_ and sighing as his weight eased off his stumps.

 

He contemplated the scene before him, the prow of the Orca pointing off to his right at a low angle and the yellow eye of the hatch staring out over the ruined plaza. The lilies and lotuses in the choked pool had drifted over to one side, piling up against each other as the wind rose. The branches in the surrounding forest were in constant motion, bending and springing back with creaking noises that could be heard even over the wind and rustling detritus.

 

He found it quite lovely. He felt his irritation and apprehension fade somewhat, lulled by the white noise surrounding him. He might never know why, but storms always served to relax him--it was one of the few things his training had not tinged with paranoia, though not from lack of trying. The darkness made it easier to infiltrate, the noise masked footsteps, the lightning destroyed night vision, etc., etc., etc., but while Hanzo had learned to be vigilant, he could not bring himself to _care._ The lightning flashed and thunder echoed in his chest like a fireworks display, the leaves in the wind were like windchimes, and the eventual rainfall would be like--

 

The first few fat drops sprinkled across the plaza, the sole brief warning before the torrent began.

 

\--like being submerged in a river.

 

The Orca’s outline blurred. Only its white hull prevented it from being almost lost entirely, standing out among the sheets of rain, the light spilling from the hatch catching in the raindrops and in the myriad puddles that almost instantly formed among the flagstones of the plaza. The roof of the portico rattled under the onslaught, but while streams of water flowed through patches and holes opened by years of weathering, none appeared right above Hanzo. The wind blew spray and tiny droplets into his face and misted his clothes when it gusted, but otherwise he had picked a dry enough spot.

 

He knelt there for a long while, studying the calming scene before him--but little by little, his introspection turned back to the scene inside the Orca. The storm without could not compare to the storm within.

 

Soon he was squeezing his eyes shut whenever a particularly thorny thought pricked at him. There was no lack of them. Agent D.Va’s interrogation, Agent McCree’s confounding defense, Agent Tracer’s charges of no remorse, Genji’s imminent reaction to his actions, the headache he had likely brought upon Winston. He scoffed at himself at that last thought--would Winston extend him an invitation to Gibraltar now? Most likely not. He could not imagine that he would still feel so charitable once Agent D.Va reminded him exactly who and what he was--even if he still wanted, he might not be allowed to anymore.

 

Not that Gibraltar had ever been an option, but it was regrettable that Hanzo had repaid Winston’s consideration in a way that might cost Winston a valuable ally. Hanzo had no idea how an active service member of the ROK Armed Forces had come to become a member in the first place, but it stood to reason the alliance may be fragile given Overwatch’s legal status. It may not survive the revelation of his membership, temporary or otherwise.

 

Well. Perhaps Winston would find a limit to his consideration and discharge Hanzo instead. That was the likelier possibility--but that would be the worse option for Hanzo unless it pushed Genji to take up his sword at last.

 

If it did not, then Hanzo would have failed to honor Genji’s mandate and that--that would mean yet more mud on Hanzo’s name. Nothing he had done in the last ten years had done anything to expunge any of his misdeeds, and now he was blundering about doing nothing more but sink deeper into the sludge.

 

Hanzo’s rigid posture sagged. His successes were greatly outweighed by his failures. He defended Overwatch at the Yoneyama warehouse only to attack one of their senior agents and disappear for three days on an alcohol-fueled blackout. He infiltrated a secure facility of one of the most powerful corporations in the world only to cost Overwatch an invaluable ally.

 

He spent ten years honoring the spirit of his brother, only to have him reappear alive, the victim of a greater crime than Hanzo could ever have imagined he had committed.

 

Everything he had sacrificed to Genji’s memory was all for nothing. He would have been better off remaining _kumichō_ so that Genji could have easily found him. He could have struck while his righteous anger was still red hot-- _then_ let the Omnic monk pacify him, even if it meant feeding him excuses and misplaced pity, to bring back a semblance of the man Hanzo had destroyed. Justice would have been served, Hanzo would have paid his price, and Genji would not now have the weight of his brother around his neck, a weight he placed there himself.

 

Despite his dark meditation, Hanzo did not miss the loud, squelching footsteps approaching, each accompanied by the sharp jingle of a spur.

 

He slowly straightened his spine and threw his shoulders back once more. He squinted into the rain, finding the cowboy easily enough--the sun must have risen, unseen above the clouds but forcing a wan gray light through the stormbank.

 

The cowboy had thrown his cape around his shoulders once more, the red standing out through the deluge and contrasting with a large black umbrella the cowboy was carrying, low enough to hide his face. Rivulets of water poured off the umbrella in all directions, splattering on the ground and staining the bottom of his jeans a deep blue-black.

 

He evidently had Hanzo as his objective and knew just where to find him--he made a beeline right for the portico, the umbrella bouncing in time with one spur like a stressed beat, the other spur the unstressed beat, keeping time for the random notes of the storm all around.

 

The cowboy tilted the umbrella back to reveal his neutral face when he came under what remained of the portico’s roof, but he did not lower it. Instead, he studied Hanzo for a moment. “You doin’ okay out here? You’re lookin’ a little damp.”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow slightly. He _was_ damp from the mist and spray that the wind was whipping around the column, but not very. He pursed his lips slightly before he answered, “I am fine, thank you, Agent McCree.”

 

The cowboy nodded and immediately turned around, but he did not leave. Instead, he seemed to look the scene over much as Hanzo had. “Hell of a storm. I’ve been in the tropics plenty of times now, but I never get used t’this much rain. Doesn’ seem like the place should still be above ground afterwards.”

 

Hanzo was not used to it either, not really. The typhoons that regularly struck Japan would often dump similar torrents of water as they passed over, but it was always with strong winds that made it inadvisable or impossible to be outdoors. Here, the astounding amount of water was accompanied by what was a breeze in comparison.

 

The cowboy turned back to Hanzo. “I--” His voice trailed off, then he snorted, looking annoyed with himself. “So--Winston called Genji back in to give his side of the story t’Song and Lúcio and Mei.” Hanzo felt a chill go through him and he glanced involuntarily back at the Orca and still-open, yawning hatch, but the cowboy recalled his attention soon enough. “So, while he’s doin’ that--do you mind if I sit for a spell?”

 

Hanzo looked back to him, his brows knitting together. “Are you not replacing Genji on the perimeter?”

 

“Yeah,” said the cowboy as he waved a hand, “but Athena’s got her security drones out, so it’s more a formality than anything. Besides, if someone’s willing t’come at us through this storm, they’ve earned a good fight, dontcha think?”

 

Hanzo blinked slowly as his lips twitched a little. That was a rather--cavalier attitude--though in fairness, no more so than Hanzo’s response to the cowboy’s concerns about Vishkar capturing him.

 

The cowboy waited a few seconds before adding with a hint of entreatment, “And I--I just want t’say a few things, if you’re amenable.”

 

Hanzo was instantly on his guard, eying the cowboy with a sharp look, but it was not really in his power to deny him, so he nodded. The cowboy tilted the umbrella back and forth consideringly for a moment before he moved toward the column and heavily sat down in front of Hanzo, leaning his back against it. He set the umbrella down on the ground but kept ahold of it, adjusting it to block the wind coming around one side of the column, halving the spray and little droplets that had been slowly wetting Hanzo down.

 

They sat there, the cowboy’s long legs sprawled out in front of him, Hanzo kneeling stiffly in _seiza_ , for a minute or two. The cowboy had his head bowed, the brim of his hat low over his face, but Hanzo could clearly see his profile as he bit and worried at his bottom lip and stared rather vacantly at the ground between his legs.

 

He could not keep his thoughts from straying from the cowboy back to the interior of the Orca while he waited, wondering with slowly mounting apprehension about what was happening there.

 

Finally the cowboy stirred, tipping his head back but looking straight ahead down the remaining length of the portico. “I’d wondered why you weren’ rubbin’ my hypocrisy in my face,” he murmured, barely audible over the rain.

 

Hanzo tilted his head slightly, nonplussed. “Hypocrisy?”

 

The cowboy chuckled. “A former gangster, givin’ another former gangster hell for bein’ a gangster. That small bit of hypocrisy.”

 

Hanzo shifted, one of his stubs protesting as he moved wrong over a bruise. “As I said--”

 

“As you said, I was a kid,” the cowboy interrupted, holding up a hand. “That’s--phew,” he exhaled forcefully, shaking his head. “That’s a mighty kind conclusion you came to. Most people didn’ think the same back then, I’ll tell you that.”

 

Kind?

 

“Hardly,” said Hanzo, turning his head away to hide any hint of a scoff. “It is a truth I know only too well. Our ranks were full of boys like you, Agent McCree.”

 

“Still,” the cowboy insisted, “you could’ve thrown it all in my face, considerin’ how I treated ya. I couldn’ understand why you didn’ the moment you read my file.”

 

Hanzo felt a minute amount of shock as he thought back to their conversation in the Niigata safehouse’s dining area. _That_ was what the cowboy had been trying to suss out of him? He shook his head with slight bewilderment. “I only better understood your disdain.”

 

“Wha--how do you figure _that?_ ” asked the cowboy as he shifted slightly to get a better look at him. Hanzo met his puzzled face with his own carefully schooled into neutrality.

 

“You know better than most how false and malicious the leaders of crime syndicates are,” he said tonelessly. “We sit in our comfortable dens as we spend our underlings like currency, telling them to think of us as brothers while we think of _them_ as weapons, if we bother to think of them at all. I’m sure your leaders in Deadlock were much the same--though I doubt _their_ den was as comfortable as mine was.”

 

The cowboy stared at him for a few seconds before he once again surprised Hanzo with a slow smile. “Yeah, naw, we sure didn’ have any castles out in Deadlock Gorge, that’s for sure,” he said with more mirth than Hanzo expected. “That _I_ knew of, at least. Coulda had one or two hidden down one of those snakepits they had us excavate, I guess. We did have a big ol’ fortress, though. I got some old photos of it y’know--might even impress a former _kumichō_ such as yourself.”

 

Hanzo stared at him, at a loss of what to say.

 

“Y’know, that was one thing Genji never quite got back in Blackwatch,” the cowboy said suddenly, his face taking on a shrewd look.

 

“What?” asked Hanzo, almost against his will, surprised by the non-sequitur.

 

“How different it is for the grunts and the bosses. We found out we were both involved in gangs pretty quick after he joined,” the cowboy explained, his face softening a little, eyes lost in recollection. “But he had a weird outlook on gang life. He thought it was a crime, heh, that I didn’ get a weekly _stipend._ He thought that was barbaric, and I didn’ have the heart t’tell him at first that all those ‘low-level grunts’ he knew back then weren’ low-level at all. I didn’ get _paid,_ I got oh-so-generous handouts for lendin’ a hand.”

 

Hanzo shrugged. “Genji was not involved in clan business. He would not have known.”

 

“That’s not the way he tells it,” said the cowboy, looking up.

 

Hanzo shook his head. “When he was young he was sent on clan business as part of his training. After a certain point, he refused to do anything for the clan unl--” Hanzo bit his tongue, frowning at himself. It was not his place to air his brother’s past.

 

“Unless he needed some extra cash,” the cowboy finished. Hanzo pursed his lips but nodded slightly. “He, uh--he doesn’ deny doin’ that sort of thing, but he don’ go around telling everyone about it either.” Hanzo fought not to scowl at the cowboy’s implied admonishment--he would most likely misinterpret it as directed at him rather than at himself. “Anyway, I just think that’s an interestin’ difference between you two. I didn’ expect you t’be conscious of that sorta thing.”

 

Hanzo bowed his head, staring at his hands pressing against his thighs. “All such leaders are conscious of it. Whether they choose to acknowledge it is another matter.”

 

“I guess.”

 

Neither man said anything for a while. The cowboy looked out over the storm-drenched plaza, seemingly lost in his thoughts. For his part, Hanzo could not help but wonder at this conversation--it was surreal to be in the ruins of a temple in the Indian countryside, waiting out a monsoon storm, the military transport of an illegal paramilitary organization off to one side, sitting with the cowboy of all people in a silence that was--not _comfortable_ by any means, but not _tense_ either. The cowboy gave little sign of watchfulness in general, and less still directed at Hanzo in particular. If someone were to happen upon them, they might only see two travelers caught by the storm, not necessarily companions but certainly not adversaries.

 

How strange.

 

The cowboy suddenly straightened and tapped at his ear. “McCree here.” Hanzo’s apprehension immediately returned in full force, and he watched the cowboy intently as he listened to his earpiece. “Yeah, I found a good place. Yeah, he’s right here with me. Uh huh. That’s good t’hear. Oh.” The last word was inflected with unease, and the cowboy glanced at Hanzo. “Alright, we’re just off the starboard bow, we’ll be in lickity-split.” He tapped at his earpiece and sighed. He seemed to gather himself for a moment before he looked at Hanzo. “Good news is, Athena’s finished scannin’ the comm and found nothin’. We’re good t’go.” He hesitated.

 

Hanzo could not help himself. “The bad news is--”

 

“Well, dunno if it’s ‘bad news’--” began the cowboy bravely, before he trailed off and heaved a big sigh. “--but it probably ain’ good news either. Winston wants t’talk with ya about what you said.” A pregnant pause, Hanzo fully aware that there was more to say. “Genji wants t’talk to ya, too.”

 

Hanzo drew in a breath, centering himself. “Very well.” He got to his feet, trying to put his weight on his bruises as gently as possible. The cowboy mirrored him, grunting as he levered himself up with the column as support. He swung the umbrella back up, obviously intending to hold it over both of them as they returned. But he hung back when Hanzo took a step forward.

 

“Couple more things, Agent Shimada, before we go back.”

 

Hanzo froze before turning slowly in place. The cowboy was looking toward the Orca, not making eye contact.

 

“I--I appreciate you defendin’ me,” he said slowly. “But, uh--you don’ really get t’decide how bad I was. I think I know what your intentions were, but I gotta ask you not t’--not t’dismiss my past like that. It was a big deal, then and now.”

 

Hanzo was taken aback, but he nodded all-the-same. “Of course. I--apologize.”

 

“S’ok, like I said, I appreciate the defense. I, uh. I didn’ have many people defendin’ me back then, so I remember every one of ‘em, and you’re one of ‘em now. I won’ forget it.”

 

Hanzo felt his chest constrict again, but he kept silent, waiting for the cowboy to continue.

 

“And lastly--I got some inside information, don’ ask me how, but I reckon Winston won’ be too upset about what went down with Song. I think Lúcio’s more likely t’leave than she is, actually, but I don’ think either of ‘em will once Genji talks ‘em down. Which means--Gibraltar ain’ off the table.”

 

Hanzo furrowed his brow just as the cowboy looked at him, with a small if uncertain smile. “I know I’m only givin’ you about a minute t’reconsider in light of that, but, uh--just wanted you t’know that, so you don’ get taken by surprise in there.”

 

Hanzo only just avoided staring, giving a robotic, curt nod right when the silence was about to go on too long, and both men turned and began to trek carefully over the wet, slippery flagstones back towards the Orca.

 

How strange, he thought.

 

How strange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _So_ strange!!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this latest chapter!! Lots more interaction in this one! Also, just to note, I know Jesse was 17 when he joined Blackwatch, but he was entered in the system as 18, hence Hanzo's "mistake"! It'll be a small plot point!
> 
> [Kitsune2022](http://kitsune2022-artish.tumblr.com/) very generously draw the [scene with McCree and Hanzo with the umbrella!](http://kitsune2022-artish.tumblr.com/post/164143043402/well-its-not-a-secret-at-this-point-that-yes) I posted it with the last chapter, but here it is again now that y'all have context! It turned out a little different from how I described it to her, but it's still a wonderful piece of art!!
> 
> As with Lena, I'm a little nervous about Hana--I dunno how people were expecting her to be in this, but I'm guessing she might be a little different. Rest assured that she'll be getting more screen time that will be more in line with how she acts in-game! 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading and commenting!! I appreciate all the feedback I've been receiving, it's been incredibly nice!! This chapter now makes _Afterdrop_ my longest fic on AO3, and your encouragement and kindness have been instrumental in helping me get this far! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!


	14. Something

 

It was a short walk back to the Orca, but the closer he got to the glaring yellow square of the open hatch, the more trepidation weighed on his shoulders and dragged at his feet, though Hanzo did not allow it to slow him down. It would have been unacceptable anyway--the cowboy was walking at his side, and he would not show even the slightest bit of weakness by lingering behind.

 

Also, the cowboy had the umbrella. The heavy downpour was good motivation to keep up, no matter what was waiting for him.

 

Hanzo stepped carefully onto the ramp, mindful that the wet, slick metal might be enough to defeat the treads on his artificial feet. The cowboy stepped up even more gingerly, grimacing slightly as he tested the grip of his boots. “Knew I shoulda changed into my combat boots,” he muttered softly as he almost waddled up the ramp, pushing with the outer edges of his feet as if he was scrambling up a steep hillside covered with loose sand or pebbles. “Whoops! Sorry there.” The umbrella had tilted crazily with his awkward movements, dumping water on Hanzo’s left arm.

 

He glanced at the sodden sleeve. The white fabric had already been damp enough to allow a faint image of the intricate ink through, but now a large patch was clearly visible. He sighed internally as they stepped through the yellow forcefield over the entrance. At least his frankness meant that hiding the tattoo was now a non-issue. Even if Genji did not wish to reveal their shared pasts, it would have been hard to explain away the obvious yakuza connotations once it was inevitably revealed by some similar accident.

 

The cowboy immediately turned and stuck the umbrella back out through the forcefield to close it and shake the water off, leaving Hanzo to face the scene within. Winston was once again waiting just off to the side of the hatch, but to Hanzo’s surprise he was smiling--it was thin-lipped and strained-looking, but he was smiling.

 

“Agent Shimada, I apologize,” he said immediately, shuffling forward. “I didn’t mean for you to have to wait outside in a storm.”

 

“It was nothing. There was sufficient shelter--”

 

“But there might not have been,” cut in Winston, his smile disappearing. He leaned forward. “Next time, take an umbrella or a poncho or something,” he said in a low voice with slight admonishment. “You’re more than welcome to something as small as _that._ Anyway!” He sat back and turned, jerking his head to signal Hanzo to accompany him. “As you know, D.Va  raised some concerns, but I think we’ve settled them to our mutual satisfaction.”

 

Agent D.Va was revealed behind him, standing with her arms crossed in front of her chest but with her weight casually on one leg. Beyond her Hanzo caught only a glimpse of the somber expressions of the rest of the agents around the rec table--along with Genji’s blank visor as he sat on the edge of the loveseat--before Agent D.Va spoke. “Commander Winston informed MEKA of you before my arrival,” she stated in a flat tone with no preamble. Hanzo felt a chill go through him. He fought not to glance at Winston, maintaining eye contact as she continued. “Therefore he was already prepared to maintain all necessary security protocols, therefore there is no issue.”

 

“Yes, exactly,” said Winston, a small smile returning to his face. “D.Va and McCree would’ve briefed you on them in the runup to the raid had things gone otherwise, but now you can review them on your new comm.” He held it out to Hanzo. It was identical to his old one. He slowly took it and turned it over in his hands. Winston faced the rec table, with Hanzo on his left. With a soft jingle, the cowboy stepped to Winston’s right. “I’d like to address the elephant in the room: Agent Shimada and Agent Genji.”

 

Hanzo froze, the bruises on his stubs twinging at the sudden stop. Winston made no move to wave him away to speak to his subordinates in private or to ask him to sit or to do anything but stand at his side.

 

In a flash he was uncomfortably aware of every single person in the room.

 

Genji was seated at the end of the loveseat under the coffee machine. Standing at his side was Dr. Ziegler, her shoulders tense and rigid, though she was attempting a relaxed pose with her hands in the pockets of the lab coat she had thrown over her light blue shirt. Seated on Genji’s other side was Agent Lúcio, who wore a grave expression that looked out-of-place and uncharacteristic on his face despite the little time Hanzo had known him--his excitable, cheerful personality had seemed irrepressible until now. To Agent Lúcio’s left, Agent Mei was similarly subdued, her earlier good humor all but evaporated. Agent Soldier: 76 did not seem to have moved a centimeter, still at the other end of the loveseat, though he had stiffened his back ramrod straight when Winston addressed them all. Agent Tracer copied him at his side, her slight frame dwarfed by the old soldier at her side.

 

Winston paused for a moment and pressed at his glasses, as if considering with his eyes closed. “Overwatch--” he began, speaking slowly with a distinct note of self-conscious hesitation. “Overwatch drew from a wide and varied spectrum of people, uniting soldiers and scientists from across the world for the common good of everyone, no matter who you were or where you came from. That was its biggest strength from the very beginning.”

 

He dropped his hand from his glasses and raised his head. “As some of you always knew and some of you just discovered, that included people from backgrounds that were diametrically opposed to everything we worked and stood for. I won’t pretend that we were always right to do so, but I _do_ know that we discovered some of our best agents that way, one of whom is standing at my side at this very moment.”

 

Hanzo did not turn his head to look at the cowboy, but the soft clink of a spur revealed a slight movement, a slight shift in the cowboy’s posture.

 

“He is not the first nor the only agent to come to us from questionable beginnings.” He paused for a moment. “After all,” he said with a forced smile, “I’m an experimental talking gorilla from the Moon. Can anything really top that?” That got a response from both Agent Lúcio and Agent Mei. They both smiled, Agent Mei a little tremulously, Agent Lúcio with no small amount of relief. Agent Tracer perked up at their response and nodded encouragingly at Winston. Winston, in turn, relaxed slightly, and the hesitation dropped out of his voice as he said, “But Overwatch accepted me regardless, and I fully intend to continue that tradition. I won’t be blinded by optimism, but I won’t be hardened by cynicism either.”

 

Hanzo caught a small movement from Agent Soldier: 76 at those words. He was shaking his head slightly, and his red visor was no longer looking at Winston straight-on. Hanzo thought back to the debriefing at the Niigata safehouse, to the parting words of the old Strike Commander as he spoke of Overwatch’s demise--its _inevitable_ demise, in point of fact.

 

What must he think of Winston now?

 

His attention was called back as Winston said, “I believe in seeing things as they could be, and that includes people. I initiated the Recall with that in mind, and I hope you can trust in that enough to allow me to ask you to give Agent Shimada the same chance that we gave so many others like him.”

 

Agent Lúcio nodded again. He was by far the most enthusiastic among Winston’s audience, but the agents surrounding him visibly relaxed when they saw how receptive he was.

 

Agent D.Va, on the other hand, looked unmoved, staring at Hanzo with more than a hint of challenge. He met it with no challenge of his own. Her eyes narrowed as though the lack of response provoked her, but when she spoke, she merely said, “Any questions about MEKA and how far you need to stay away from it outside of battle, come straight to me.” She turned away sharply and stalked away towards the rec table.

 

Genji stood as she approached. “He won’t make any trouble,” he said quietly. The tension, momentarily broken, rose sharply once more, every agent’s eyes trained on the pair. “There’s no need for you to treat him like that.”

 

“You sure about that?” she asked as she moved past him, tapping her knuckles on his metal chestplate with dull _thunk_ before she sat by Agent Lúcio.

 

Genji stood stockstill for a few moments. Then, slowly, carefully, he moved away from the rec table and made a beeline for the forward stairway. “A moment, brother,” he bit out as he passed by Hanzo and reached out and caught his shoulder in an iron grip, turning him around and ushering him forward.  Hanzo complied, resisting the urge to throw Genji’s strangely warm hand off, his shoulder tingling, nearly spasming under the contact as they climbed the stairs.

 

“Athena, can I get a privacy screen?”

 

“Of course, Agent Genji.”

 

The yellow forcefield bubbled over the stairway once more, cutting off the quiet murmur of voices that had followed behind them. Now there was only the quiet _tap tap tap_ of their footsteps.

 

There was little difference between them, Hanzo observed with a pang in his chest. They both had metal feet.

 

Genji released his shoulder and signaled him to sit with a stiff wave of his hand, this time in the workstation to the left of the stairs.

 

Hanzo sat with equal stiffness, most of it having nothing to do with his bruises.

 

In lieu of saying anything, Genji began to pace, three meters off to one side before a sharp one eighty to stalk back.

 

Hanzo tried not to allow the familiar action to perturb him, but this was a hell of a time to see his father’s habits replicated in a cloak of metal and exposed sinew.

 

Even the sudden dead stop and spin on his heel to face him head on was a carbon copy.

 

“I didn’t think I’d ever have to talk to _you_ about discretion.”

 

How odd to hear his mother at a time like this.

 

But she disappeared fairly quickly as Genji continued to speak. “I mean, wow. _Wow,_ Hanzo. A simple answer to a simple question, right? But I can think of even simpler answers you could’ve given. Was it really necessary to tell them all that?”

 

One of Genji’s legs twitched as though he were about to start pacing again, but he held his position, the green visor looking imperiously down on Hanzo. “What business of theirs was any of that? I’ll tell you: none. None!” he fumed, voice rising and brandishing an empty hand. “What the hell were you trying to do, Hanzo? Are you trying to get yourself shot? What are you gonna do, take every new recruit aside as they come through the door and tell them our whole family history?”

 

He did not seem to be able to stand still any longer; he spun around again and strode away, but he was back again in short order. “No, not even our family history, just a few short sentences with no context! The whole story yet none of it! You know it was more complicated than you let on! You _know_ it was!” Another spin and abortive walk away, another swift return. “Oh! And your defense of McCree! Very noble of you, but you actually sat there and said he was just a kid when he started out and then conveniently forgot to mention that you were _born_ into it!”

 

Hanzo nearly opened his mouth to remind his brother of his age at the time of their duel, but he stopped himself as Genji leaned forward. He would not insult his brother with a reminder, and this was not a discussion anyway.

 

“Just _when,_ ” Genji growled, bringing his visor level with Hanzo’s face, “were you going to mention that? _Ever?_ That’s kinda important if they were going to understand, but you didn’t want them to understand, did you? You just wanted them to hate you, right? Am I wrong? _Am I wrong?!”_

 

Two cylinders popped out of Genji’s shoulders. Hanzo felt his face blanche slightly, his heart seizing at the memory of the duel at the castle, when the twin shocks of the appearance of the dragon and blow of his own dragons being turned against him had left him vulnerable. His assassin--the impossible _Shimada_ assassin--had coolly and unhurriedly sheathed his sword as those same cylinders spun and clicked in place before in a flash he had his _wakizashi_ at Hanzo’s neck, using his secondary sword to avoid dirtying his _ōdachi_.

 

Then he revealed his even more impossible identity.

 

Thankfully, mercifully, now those same cylinders only let out two nearly invisible streams of steam for a bare two or three seconds before they clicked back into place, disappearing under Genji’s “skin”.

 

Genji stood motionless for a long time, the green line of his visor locked on Hanzo’s face. Hanzo found it far more difficult to return his gaze than Agent D.Va’s, but he found he could endure it if he focused on the odd way this outburst was--

 

Genji threw his hands up at Hanzo’s silence. He straightened, turned, and marched away, his feet now loud and clanking against the deck of the Orca.

 

\--reassuring.

 

Genji stopped before the other workstation, facing away from Hanzo. He flexed his hands, clenching and unclenching them once or twice before he swept them out of sight, holding them around chest level. Then he was still once more, and silence descended, leaving only the soft technological ambient sounds of the Orca and Hanzo’s own breathing and heartbeat.

 

Hanzo looked away; it occurred to him that his brother was likely performing a mudra of some kind and suddenly it seemed like he was invading on a private moment. Instead he studied what he could see of the cockpit with a concentration born out of a kind of desperation as he waited. Unfortunately the monitors were all switched off, and nothing could be seen through the apse-like windows save for rivulets of water pouring down the windshield and the occasional dim flash of lightning through the low cloudbank.

 

The time crawled past; whether it was five minutes or thirty, he could not tell.

 

Finally Genji stirred again, dropping his arms to his side and turning halfway.

 

“I didn’t bring you here to suffer, Hanzo.”

 

Hanzo snapped his eyes back to him. Genji’s upper body was framed by the orange-yellow of the monitor behind him, the bright light bleeding around the edges of his profile, softening the outline of his visor and his skull-like head.

 

“You have to understand that, alright? I don’t want your--your _penance,_ okay? All I want--” he cut himself off, then growled softly, an odd sound through the modulation of his helmet.

 

Genji said nothing for a few moments, though Hanzo could not see why. It was completely impossible to tell if Genji was struggling to find words or was attempting to hide his intentions or was merely frustrated. The still, statuesque form standing across from him gave him no clues. No body movements, no facial ticks, nothing to betray what his formerly open book of a brother was thinking and feeling.

 

Finally, Genji said quietly, tiredly, “Just. From now on, if anyone asks, say it’s private, alright? If they pry, send them to me and _I’ll_ deal with them. Okay?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips.

 

“ _Okay?!_ ” Genji snapped.

 

Hanzo automatically jerked a short nod before he caught himself and nodded more naturally.

 

There was silence for another uncomfortable stretch of time before Genji broke it with a sigh. “I--they’re--there’s--ugh,” he groaned, turning away from Hanzo and folding his arms. “Where’s Reyes when you need him?”

 

Hanzo could not help but raise an eyebrow, but he stopped the question before it could slip past his tongue. Genji, though, sensing the question or merely wishing to fill the tense silence, kept talking. “He never would’ve tolerated this. He didn’t when people tried to give McCree shit, he didn’t when they tried to give _me_ shit, and he wouldn’t have let anyone give _you_ shit.”

 

Hanzo scoffed at that for half a moment, but he caught himself before it could rise to the surface.

 

There was that oddly sympathetic treatment of Commander Reyes again--Hanzo would expect the man who betrayed Overwatch to resonate with certain of his brother’s--fouler--memories, but confusingly they did not. Hanzo supposed that Genji and Agent McCree, as Reyes’ former subordinates, _might_ remember him with mixed feelings at best, but there was Agent Tracer and the others to consider. Why were they all choosing to ignore Zürich in favor of the man’s earlier heroism?

 

He shook himself. He was doing his brother a disservice by attempting to flee the matter at hand with pointless wonderings.

 

Genji, meanwhile, had fallen silent, but he turned to face Hanzo straight on. “Hanzo--” he began before cutting himself off again. Another frustrated noise escaped him before he heaved a sigh. “Do you--do you have anything to say? At all?”

 

Hanzo instantly shook his head.

 

Genji shook his own head, muttering something under his breath that Hanzo could not catch. Then, louder, “Then I guess we’re done for now.”

 

For now. Hanzo set his jaw, his teeth grinding slightly.

 

“Come on,” Genji said, sounding weary and moving towards the stairs. Hanzo stood, exhaling slightly as he settled his weight on his bruises. He adjusted his shirt slightly, trying to peel the unpleasant tackiness of the drying material away from his skin before he followed Genji. The privacy screen switched off as they approached, allowing a burst of loud voices that immediately quieted as though everyone had been watching the stairs. Everyone was gathered around the rec table, looking up at the two of them. Genji raised a hand and gave a short wave. “Yo,” he said with a casual tone.

 

“Uh, yo,” returned Winston as he shuffled around in place. “Alright, now that everything’s--settled?” he said, turning the sentence into an awkward question as he looked at Genji. Genji only shrugged his shoulders in response, which was apparently enough of an answer. “Now that everything’s settled,” repeated Winston, “Agent Shimada? Have you thought on it? Or do you need more time?”

 

“Thought about what?” Genji asked, stopping short and half-turning.

 

Hanzo had to hide his surprise, but apparently the cowboy had been correct--Winston still considered Gibraltar an option, even after all this. He managed to answer smoothly. “Commander Winston and Agent McCree believe that I should lay low for a period of time,” he said, allowing himself to keep his eyes focused above the visor now that Genji’s lecture was over. Switching his gaze to Winston, he continued, “I have several safehouses in Japan that will suffice.”

 

Winston grimaced. “If they only ‘suffice’--” he said, allowing his voice to trail off.

 

Despite his increasing understanding of the gorilla, it was still surprising to find that the Strike Commander _meant_ it when he said it had to be a “viable alternative”.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips slightly. If this had been a job Hanzo had taken of his own free will, he likely would have disappeared into the Indian countryside for a week or two before doing anything else, but Winston had already said he was unwilling to allow Hanzo to do exactly that. After that week or two, though? There was only one place that Hanzo felt was secluded enough to satisfy his paranoid instincts, especially after a job of this scale and sensitivity.

 

He glanced at the rec table before he approached Winston and lowered his voice. “I--” he swallowed thickly as his throat constricted around one of his secrets once again, but he managed to force the words through. Keeping his voice low helped, though he doubted it was helping improve his image much among the newer agents. “I intend to go to Hokkaido,” he murmured. Winston had to lean in to hear him, and Genji moved closer to catch it as well.

 

“Hokkaido?” mused Winston, rubbing his chin with a large hand. “Hmm.” He did not seem particularly receptive.

 

“I have established several caches there,” Hanzo explained, his brother’s presence burning at his side. “It is isolated, and access is strictly controlled by the Self-Defence Forces.”

 

“Yes, that’s what concerns me,” said Winston. “Though I’m guessing you have a way around that.”

 

Hanzo shrugged slightly. “It is far easier to get into Hokkaido from one of the Forbidden Four Prefectures,” he said simply. “If you take me into Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, I will catch a flight to--”

 

“Oh no, no, no,” interrupted Winston, shaking his enormous head. “We’ll just take you there.”

 

Hanzo was thrown for a moment. He had apparently badly misread the gorilla. “There is no need. I will take a flight to Fukuoka or Osaka, and then it will be simple to get into the Forbidden Four and on to Hokkaido.”

 

“It will be even easier to just take you there ourselves,” argued Winston. “The Orca is shielded, so we’ll avoid any detection. We could probably drop you off right in Hokkaido.”

 

“That--” began Hanzo, “That would be inadvisable. The JSDF kept an extremely close eye on Hokkaido even before the Siberia Omnium reactivated, but now there are rumors both they and the UN have upgraded the surveillance equipment on the island. Your shields may have become obsolete since--”

 

Winston hummed with a considering look on his face. “What about the Forbidden Four? Have they done the same there?”

 

“Not to my knowledge,” Hanzo said, but he was quick to qualify the statement. “The people there are not as vigilant as the Ainu, however. They are more accommodating and less suspicious of the JSDF and the UN, so they may not notice such things.”

 

“Well, Athena’s been keeping tabs on the Hokkaido Omnium, and she hasn’t found anything strange anywhere on Honshu. They didn’t notice when we landed in Yamagata to find you--” Hanzo blinked. Had they really taken such a risk back then? Landing directly _in_ one of the Forbidden Four just to find him? “--so I see no reason not to do it again. Where would you go from there?”

 

Winston leveled a intense look at Hanzo when he opened his mouth to argue once more that being taken there in the Orca was unnecessary--or perhaps it was to warn him not to avoid the question. Either way, Hanzo could only switch what he was going to say to “To the ferries in Aomori. They have low security since they assume their passengers have already been checked at the border of the Forbidden Four.”

 

Winston nodded thoughtfully. Genji had been listening in with his arms crossed across his chest, and now he broke in, “Couldn’t he just come back with us?”

 

Winston did not miss a beat, as though he had been expecting the question. “Gibraltar was our backup if Agent Shimada did not have any alternative,” he said, fixing Genji with a strange look. “But he does, so I will not obligate him to come.”

 

The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds. Hanzo sighed internally--if Genji wished for him to go to Gibraltar instead, there was no reason for them to--

 

But Genji nodded. “Very well. He may do as he pleases.”

 

“If you would rather I--”

 

“Tracer!” Genji called out, walking away towards the aft stairs. “You hear all that? We’re heading for Aomori!”

 

“Uh,” said Agent Tracer from the rec table, looking between Genji and Winston.

 

Winston sighed. “We’ll drop you off as close to Aomori as we can,” he said to Hanzo.

 

Agent Tracer took that as confirmation and immediately zipped past, heading to the cockpit. “Right-o!” she called out, pausing at the foot of the stairs. “Is Torbjörn ready yet, or is he still babying his turrets?”

 

Even as she spoke, heavy, clanking footsteps came up with ramp. “Heh, I’m ready, I’m ready. Every one of them is nice and dry and tucked away and ready for the rollercoaster you call ‘flying’.”

 

Agent Tobjörn shook off a layer of rainwater as he passed through the forcefield--if he meant to shed it outside, he largely failed, leaving shining drops splattered across the floor and wall next to the hatch. He tore off a red poncho to reveal a tight black hood covering his hair and red-and-silver body armor over most of his body. The cover did not seem to have done him much good--water was dripping from the two thick blonde plaits of his beard that hung to his waist and from the ends of his handlebar mustache.

 

Much like Agent Lúcio, his presence was greatly amplified beyond his mere meter-and-a-half stature by his behavior and sheer volume of both movement and voice as he wadded up the poncho, but even if he were silent and still he would cut an imposing figure--his arms and legs were thick with burly muscle. “Stout” seemed almost invented to describe him.  

 

He looked around the room and immediately focused on Hanzo. “Aha,” he huffed as he came forward towards him. Hanzo stiffened but held his ground as Agent Torbjörn looked him up and down. His right eye was covered in a strange eyepatch-like device made of something translucent and red, with two dots of red light slowly drifting across its surface. His uncovered eye was a piercing blue, and it narrowed as he grimaced slightly and stroked one of his plaits with his flesh hand. His other arm, as in Niigata, was mostly a giant rounded pincer--though now, on closer inspection, it did not seem to be as well-articulated as its clawlike appearance suggested at first glance, though Hanzo was not in any hurry to see it in action, given its size.

 

Agent Torbjörn harrumphed as he ended his visual inspection. “So. Yer Genji’s brother.”

 

Ah. Here was a former Overwatch agent who almost certainly knew already, judging by his tone and the heavy weight behind his words. Hanzo nodded slightly in response.

 

“Heh. Never thought I’d meet you of all people, but here ye are.” Agent Torbjörn seemed to be unable to speak without rumbling, his voice a baritone bordering on bass. “I hear you’ve been making use of some urban camouflage.”

 

“That--that is correct,” said Hanzo warily.

 

“That clan of yers buy it off the JSDF?”

 

His wariness was only building. “Yes.”

 

“Which model? The SIMK series or the JRTV series?”

 

“The SIMK--the SIMK-430i specifically,” Hanzo said, offering the extra information to offset his momentarily narrowed eyes. He could not help himself--this man knew a disconcerting amount of information about his suit.

 

“Of course it would be the SIMK,” muttered the engineer, shaking his head and sending his plaits swinging. “Couldn’t have been the JRTV, those pieces of junk. Well, then,” he said, raising his voice to address Hanzo once more, even as he turned and walked towards the bucket seats, rubbing at an oil stain on his claw. “Those batteries will be on their last legs. I’ll take a look at ‘em once we’re in the air.”

 

Hanzo grit his teeth. He would do _what?_

 

Winston apparently saw something in his face that he immediately rushed to placate. “Torbjörn is our chief engineer--”

 

“Yer _only_ engineer!” Agent Torbjörn called over his shoulder.

 

“Excuse me, _I_ am also an accomplished--” Winston interrupted himself by pressing at his glasses. “Not the point, Winston, focus. Torbjörn is our _chief_ engineer, so of course he’ll want to take a look at your equipment to see if it requires any maintenance.”

 

Hanzo wrenched his teeth apart. “Of course,” he said, but he could not keep the frostiness out of his voice.

 

“If you’re willing, of course,” Winston amended, but he was apparently the only one willing to compromise.

 

“He’d better be, that’s my design he’s been cavorting about in,” shouted the engineer, now on the other side of the room and pulling himself up into the bucket seat. “He’s not going to find anyone better to look at it, is he? It’s either that or those chicken leg prosthetics of his. I’m sure they need a tuneup, too, if McCree’s was any indication.” He reached up and grabbed at the restraint, catching it with his fingertips and pulling it down with an annoyed grunt.

 

Winston shot Hanzo an apologetic look before moving towards the stairs. “Alright, everyone, let’s get ready for takeoff. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

 

The rest of Overwatch voiced overlapping forms of assent, and the rec table rattled several times as they all moved to stand. Genji came down the aft stairs, most likely from one of the bathrooms tucked away there. “Shall we?” he asked, waving at the bucket seats. Hanzo nodded mutely and followed him, glancing at Agent Torbjörn as he went. Of all the things to happen during this stint with Overwatch, meeting a--the?--designer of his camouflage suit was one of the most unexpected.

 

He was not about to allow him anywhere near his prosthetics, though.

 

Genji sat in the seat closest to the wall, and Hanzo obediently sat next to him in the center seat, pulling down the restraint until it fitted over his chest and trying not to bump his bruises against the divider between his legs. He was not surprised that the remaining empty seat was taken by the cowboy--although that, in itself, was surprising.

 

“Doin’ okay there, Genji? Agent Shimada?” he asked over the jingle of his spurs as he sat heavily.

 

Hanzo nodded as Genji said, “Oh yeah. Doing _great._ ”

 

The cowboy grimaced and said nothing more.

 

Agent Mei took a seat next to Agent Torbjörn as the rest of Overwatch filed up the stairs. Agent Lúcio threw a furtive glance at Hanzo as he passed by, but Agent D.Va was all casual nonchalance, popping an enormous bubble of chewing gum as she disappeared upstairs, not sparing a single look. Agent Soldier: 76 and Dr. Ziegler were last, their heads bent together in a hushed conversation, before the old soldier’s head popped up. “Genji, we need to go over some of the Ilios data right after we take off,” he barked before climbing the stairs.

 

A pained look flitted over Dr. Ziegler’s face for a moment before she forced a small, brave smile at Hanzo. “I’d still like to complete a post-op exam once we’re airborne, Agent Shimada.”

 

He nodded again. “Of course, doctor.” Her smile widened a little as she turned and went to sit by Agent Mei. He watched her go and shook his head a minute amount. It was a clumsy attempt to separate Genji and himself, but he could not say that he was opposed to it, even if it meant a medical exam.

 

Agent Tracer’s voice erupted out of the PA. “Welcome to Orca Airlines, with service to Gibraltar with one scheduled stopover in Iwaki!” Hanzo furrowed his brow. Iwaki? “Please remain seated until the captain advises otherwise. Thank you, and we hope you enjoy your flight!”

 

“Athena musta found a good landing site thereabouts,” said the cowboy conversationally as the Orca shuddered. The light had not improved much outside and a speckled screen of raindrops and rivulets obscured the thick plate glass, but the temple ruins were barely visible as they began to drop away.

 

Genji nodded. “Must have.”

 

The cowboy waited a few moments for any follow up, but neither Genji nor Hanzo offered one. “Either of ya know anything about Iwaki?” he tried with a trace of suffering apparent in his tone.

 

“Nothing,” replied Genji shortly, shifting slightly. “Hanzo?”

 

Hanzo’s stomach was already roiling as the Orca shook again as it passed through the cloud layer and strong winds caught underneath the transport’s wings. It tipped from one side to the other as the engines revved and accelerated, throwing Hanzo’s head to one side. He grit his teeth for as long as he could before not answering would betray his discomfort. “Iwaki-yama is a volcano close to the coast,” he bit out.

 

“Oh. Interestin’,” the cowboy said, but rather than asking for more the cowboy dug his comm out from underneath his cape, to Hanzo’s relief. Hanzo took his new comm out of his own pocket, grateful to be reminded of that option. He unlocked the screen, frowning slightly that his PIN had already been transferred over, along with, it seemed, the apps from the old one. He chalked it up to Athena, and indeed, as soon as the homescreen popped up, so did a message from the AI.

 

> >Athena
> 
>  
> 
> Agent Shimada, I have taken the initiative to
> 
> duplicate the settings and layout of your old
> 
> comm. I hope it is satisfactory.

 

He began to type out a short message of thanks when another message appeared in the chat window.

 

> >Athena
> 
>  
> 
> May I make a suggestion?

 

Hanzo stared at the message, nonplussed, but a rolling motion ran through the Orca and he hurriedly pecked at the screen, for distraction if nothing else.

 

> >From: Agent Shimada
> 
>  
> 
> Of course.
> 
>  
> 
> >Athena
> 
>  
> 
> Analysis of your movements during Mission:
> 
> Boa Vista suggest you may be suffering from
> 
> acute pain. Dr. Ziegler may be able to pinpoint
> 
> and treat the underlying cause. I encourage
> 
> you to take the matter up with her during your
> 
> exam.

 

Hanzo immediately minimized the chat window before either Genji or the cowboy could see the text--Genji was the bigger known danger, he used to be able to read whole paragraphs in a flash--and he tapped on the OrcaVision app to bring up some random thing to pretend to concentrate on.

 

It took a fair few minutes, a longer time than on the previous flights, for the Orca to stop shaking and randomly dipping one wing or the other or even dropping like a stone and leaving Hanzo’s stomach behind. Eventually, eventually, it leveled off and the turbulence smoothed out in time with the strengthening sunlight pouring through the hatch window until it was white and hot on the dark deck.

 

“Bong!” sang out Agent Tracer. “You are now free to move about the cabin!”

 

Genji immediately released the restraint, stood, and headed up the stairs. Hanzo watched him go, listening to the still-too-loud sounds of his footfalls before he realized with a sinking heart that no less than three people were converging on him: Agent Lúcio appeared out of the stairway, followed by snippets of indistinct conversation floating down the stairs. Agent Torbjörn lowered himself to the floor, muttering under his breath. Dr. Ziegler stood, wobbled a bit from a stray bout of turbulence, and stepped towards him.

 

Agent Lúcio got to him first.

 

“So! Winston says we should go over the bunker in case he and McCree missed anything!” he said with surprising enthusiasm. Hanzo knit his eyebrows together, but Agent Torbjörn coughed.

 

“Not so fast, froggy, first he’s gotta get that suit out of wherever he’s hidden it.”

 

“Actually, Agent Shimada,” started the doctor, “if you’re feeling unwell--”

 

“He’s already working with Athena on something,” said the cowboy loudly, cutting over all of them. “He’s gotta answer some quick questions on the Vishkar dormitories he teleported to.”

 

“What?!” exclaimed Agent Lúcio, eyes widening. “Really?! No way!”

 

“Ayup, it’ll take him just a few minutes, then he can help y’all out. Now I _know,_ Beorn, that you need t’get about two or three thousand tools ready.”

 

Agent Torbjörn rolled his eye. “ _Beorn?_ Of all yer little nicknames--”

 

“So you mosey along and get those ready before D.Va tries t’grab the rec table out from under ya. Ang, he’ll come straight to ya when he’s handed off the suit. Luz, there’ll be the whole flight t’compare bunkers, so he’ll get to ya right after _that._ Sound good?”

 

Agent Lúcio looked put out to be last--the mention of the dormitories seemed to reinvigorate him like nothing else had--but the three agents drifted away.

 

As soon as they were a few steps away, Hanzo glanced at the cowboy, who was regarding him with a slight half-smile. “Gotta get a word in fast,” he drawled, his lips threatening to draw further up.

 

“Did you read Athena’s message?” Hanzo asked quietly.

 

The smile disappeared as the cowboy’s face twisted into something akin to horror. “Shit, does she--does she really have you doing something? I, uh, I wasn’ peekin’ or nothin’, it just seemed like the best excuse--”

 

Hanzo regarded the cowboy closely. Between the embarrassed and hurried timbre of his voice, the crease between his eyebrows, the way his fingers clutched at the comm in his hands--and a calm, cordial moment under a ruined portico--he found he could believe this one small thing.

 

“Of course. My apologies, Agent McCree,” he murmured, gently silencing the cowboy as he turned back to his comm. “I should not have accused you.”

 

The cowboy sat at his side, stockstill, for a few moments as Hanzo continued to pretend to read the random block of text OrcaVision had pulled up. Then he slowly stood. “I’ll, uh. I’ll get out from over your shoulder,” he said softly. Hanzo hummed indistinctly as the spurs clinked away.

 

A quick check to make sure no one was in a position to see his screen, even upside down, and Hanzo was typing back to Athena. He glanced at her message more than once and backspaced more than once as he hoped that keylogging was not among her abilities. He was sure antagonizing Overwatch’s central AI could bring no benefit. In the end, he kept it simple.

 

> >From: Agent Shimada
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for the suggestion.

 

Athena’s reply was immediate.

 

> >Athena
> 
>  
> 
> I realize you value your privacy, Agent
> 
> Shimada. It is not my intention to infringe
> 
> any more than necessary. However, my
> 
> experience with Overwatch agents has left
> 
> me outspoken when it comes to medical
> 
> issues.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. This AI was maddeningly polite, though he found her reasoning disturbingly similar to the doctor’s. Nonetheless, he typed back:

 

> >From: Agent Shimada
> 
>  
> 
> Of course. It is no trouble, thank you.
> 
>  
> 
> >Athena
> 
>  
> 
> Then I will risk venturing a little further, if
> 
> you’ll forgive me: Dr. Ziegler is especially
> 
> well-versed in treating phantom pain. I
> 
> hope you will speak to her about it.

 

Hanzo stared at the screen for a long while before he minimized the chat window and shoved the comm in his pocket without replying. He stood, focusing on the pain of his bruised stubs to better ignore the protests of his stomach, and went to the shelves holding his things, grabbing the cello case and flipping open the latches with greater force than necessary, his lips pressed in a flat line.

 

What kind of experiences did the AI have with the old Overwatch that taught her to be so _meddlesome?_

 

He stopped when he reached into the case and felt the damp nanowebbing of his suit--it was still drenched with his sweat. He grimaced, but before he could withdraw his hand, Agent Torbjörn was at his side. “Never mind the B.O.,” he said, chortling as he reached out expectedly. “I lost my sense of smell years ago, the first time I had to service a Crusader powersuit.”

 

Hanzo refrained from wrinkling his nose, but he complied. Luckily the suit did not smell--yet--but he did not enjoy the sight of the engineer holding it out at arm’s length, clicking his tongue as he ran his thick fingers over the moist nanowebbing. The plates of the body armor clicked and clacked together as he turned it over and over, paying particular attention to the pouch that held the lion’s share of the batteries and other electronics. “Hmm. Little bit of customization, I see,” he said, pointing to the _hakama-_ style pants. “You hold them near and dear to your heart?”

 

Hanzo shook his head mutely. It was simple embellishment to go along with a theme, nothing more. Agent Torbjörn clicked his tongue again. “And yer weapons?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “A quiver, a high-performance--”

 

“No, no, let me _see_ yer weapons. You’ve modified the suit to accommodate them, yeah? I’ve got to see them so I don’t undo yer hard work.”

 

Hanzo grit his teeth for a moment, but there was little he could do. He nodded, but he could not disguise his hesitation as he withdrew his quiver and Storm Bow from the cello case. The engineer did not comment as Hanzo emptied the quiver of its arrows; he only jerked his head towards the rec table. “C’mon, lay them out on the table.”

 

He signaled to a bare spot next to a mindboggling array of tools, some of which Hanzo recognized, most of which he did not. He dumped the quiver on the table with little regard, but he laid Storm Bow down with utmost reluctance, unstringing it in case the engineer decided to futz around with it but praying that he would leave it alone. He stepped back, his stomach clenching with nervous energy in addition to the airsickness.

 

The engineer, oblivious or uncaring, waved him away. “Doc’s waiting for ye.”

 

Indeed she was. She was standing underneath the basketball hoop across the rec table. She smiled slightly and beckoned, and Hanzo went, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder to keep Storm Bow in sight.

 

“Have a seat, Agent Shimada.” She had pulled a drawer-like bed out of the wall under the hoop, which was something of a surprise--Hanzo had not spotted anything that betrayed its presence during his last journey on the transport.

 

He sat on the edge of the surprisingly hard, clinically white surface, facing the rec table, though to his chagrin he was now too far and too low to be able to see Storm Bow clearly. Dr. Ziegler did not say anything more for a bit, instead walking to the wall and lighting up a display that had been invisible until it powered on. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, much more interested in keeping watch on Agent Torbjörn, though, again, he was too low to see what he was doing.

 

Dr. Ziegler coughed slightly to get his attention. “Go ahead and lay down.” Hanzo hid a huff as he obeyed, lying back and swinging his legs up onto the bed, careful not to whack his head too hard. The bed was fairly narrow, narrower even than a twin bed, narrow enough that he pressed his muscular arms to his sides to keep them from falling off the edges. Perhaps it was to accommodate another bed hidden in the wall--there was enough room if it was as wide as this one.

 

Dr. Ziegler unfolded a crane-like arm out of the wall and swung it over him, an odd-looking rectangular block hanging off the end. “A bioscanner,” she supplied to his questioning look. “Excuse me, you’ve probably never been in a biobed before, have you?”

 

He had, in point of fact, but it had been much different from this one.

 

She continued without waiting for his answer. “They have become standard in most hospitals since the Caduceus was developed and operate on much of the same principles. They’re a bit more reliable, though--the patient is usually not wiggling nearly so much.”

 

Hanzo nodded. Dr. Sawaguchi had treated him before the Caduceus was available. That explained the difference.

 

He turned his head to watch the rec table again. He could see even less from this position, apart from the engineer’s motionless legs underneath the table, but Hanzo kept watch all the same. The doctor warned him she was turning on the bioscanner just before he was enveloped in a golden biotic field, bathing him in warmth. He did not welcome it after the heat of the Kurnool District, but it was not unpleasant.

 

His focus on the rec table meant he missed when Dr. Ziegler almost instantly frowned as she watched the display on the wall.

 

“Agent Shimada,” she said slowly, calling part of his attention back. “I believe you said you were uninjured.”

 

“Yes,” he said distractedly, even as she set her jaw with an angry glint in her eye.

 

He completely focused on her soon enough when she ordered, “Remove your prosthetics. Now.”

 

He opened his mouth to argue, but she shook her head and glared. “They are restricting the bloodflow around your stubs,” she said icily. “It was preventing inflammation during your journey here, but that is no longer necessary. Remove your prosthetics. _Please._ ” There was zero request in her tone.

 

Hanzo forced down his frustration as he sat up, rolled up his pants just past his knees, and prodded at the releases on his prosthetics. It was bad enough that his weapon was in a stranger’s hands--he glanced at the rec table, but he could still see nothing--but now he would be far less mobile.

 

His fingers froze when the chilling thought of being _seen_ without his prosthetics hit him like a freight train. Usually--usually the loss of mobility was his only concern since he was alone when he took them off, but now--

 

“Agent Shimada.” Dr. Ziegler had turned away as she squatted and rummaged through a bag at her feet, but still she was aware of his pause.

 

He swallowed and tried, “It was not necessary to remove them last time.”

 

“Because there was little wrong with your legs then,” she replied, her tone still icy. “Now I must be sure that there has been no damage to the disks and other hardware set into your tibiae and fibulae. Please remove your prosthetics and lay down.”

 

Hanzo stared at her back for a moment before he returned to his task, jaw set and eyes narrowed to slits. He set his prosthetics at his side on the bed--he would be damned if anyone took anything else from him now--and laid back down, staring at the ceiling far above, trying not to let his face fall into too poisonous an expression as he felt the cool air of the transport circulate around his stubs.

 

The pain was momentarily relieved when the prosthetics came off, but soon enough he could feel the skin begin to stretch as the inflammation tried to set in. However, Dr. Ziegler adjusted the biotic field, intensifying the golden hue around him, and the bioscanner emitted two yellow-orange beams that focused on and enveloped the remains of his legs below the knee. The pain was soon beaten back, and he sighed internally--it was bad enough having his weapon and his prosthetics taken, but now he had the childish urge to wish that the bioscanner was more ineffective to prove some asinine, irrational point. Instead, his stubs were being healed fairly quickly with only Agent Torbjörn and Dr. Ziegler as witnesses, perhaps quickly enough that no one else--

 

“McCree! _McCree!_ Get down here!”

 

\--no one else besides the cowboy would see.

 

But luck was not on his side. To his despair, he could hear a metallic tapping accompanying the jingling spurs descending the stairs.

 

“Comin’, Torbjörn, I’m a-comin’. What’s up?”

 

“Here, yer the aspiring bowyer. Take a look and see if there’s anything that needs to be done, but I doubt it. Not a spot of wear from what I can see.”

 

Genji barked a short laugh. “I can’t believe you got my brother’s bow away from--”

 

There was an odd silence. In his peripheral vision, he saw Dr. Ziegler turn towards the stairs.

 

“I wish he took as good care of himself as he does his bow,” she said, her tone considerably lighter than when she had ordered him about. Then, with a touch of concern, “Genji?”

 

Genji still said nothing, but the doctor’s tone made Hanzo sit up slightly, shuffling onto his elbows.

 

Genji was barely in view, at the top of the stairs to the cockpit. One of his feet hovered above the next step down--he had paused in mid-step, the green visor turned full on Hanzo and Dr. Ziegler on the other side of the compartment.

 

The moment stretched on, long enough for Hanzo to distantly note the cowboy a few steps below Genji, but turned back to look up at him. He moved back up towards him. “Genji? You okay?”

 

Time seemed to snap back into place like a dislocated bone back into a joint. Genji visibly shook himself. “I’m fine! Sorry, sorry,” he said. He was apparently speaking to the cowboy, his voice was quiet enough that Hanzo had to strain to hear. Had he heard the doctor at all?

 

Hanzo sat up the rest of the way, almost folding his legs under himself out of habit before the feeling of his naked stubs rubbing across the biobed surface stopped him. He watched the cowboy hover at Genji’s side as they walked down the stairs together, but Genji showed no further sign of distraction. Indeed, he had a rather purposeful step as he made straight for Hanzo, leaving the cowboy biting his lip behind him.

 

“You’re sure you’re alright?” Dr. Ziegler asked, almost speaking under her breath when Genji drew alongside her.

 

“Yes, Angela, I’m fine,” he said, voice flat.

 

Hanzo looked up at Genji from the biobed with a blank expression, waiting once more for him to take the initiative. He had no idea what might provoke such a reaction, after all.

 

The brothers stared at each other for a long while before Genji spoke.

 

“Your--your legs.”

 

Hanzo looked at his stubs and his prosthetics standing at attention by his hip, then back at Genji as understanding dawned. He glanced at Dr. Ziegler, standing solemnly off to one side. He was seized by a perverse expectation that did not exist until that very moment that she would have told the four winds about his legs--or at least, everyone in Overwatch. But that was ridiculous--she had assured him of patient-doctor confidentiality, and he had no reason to doubt her.

 

But he almost wished she had broken confidence, just this once.

 

He nodded slowly, at a loss of what else to do, trying not to betray his perturbation by shifting uncomfortably as Genji stared at his legs. Hanzo swallowed and tried to open his mouth to say something; “It is nothing,” perhaps, or “Do not trouble yourself, it was less than my due,”--or even a lie to deflect Genji’s assumptions, like “It had nothing to do with _that._ It was a foolish mistake from two, three, five, seven years ago,” so that he might never have to explain what really happened aloud.

 

But to his embarrassment his jaw muscles were tight as a beartrap and he could not wrench them free.

 

Dr. Ziegler came to his rescue. “Genji,” she whispered, tapping his shoulder.

 

Genji stirred, almost started really, before his head snapped up to look at Hanzo’s face. Hanzo focused just above the visor as Genji asked in a low voice, “What happened?”

 

Hanzo’s jaw still refused to work.

 

“Genji,” said Dr. Ziegler again, pulling at his shoulder. “Genji, please.”

 

“When?”

 

The one word question was soft but distressingly urgent. Hanzo found it infinitely easier to answer than the first, for whatever reason.

 

“Ten years ago.”

 

Just over ten years, actually, he thought numbly. He had left Dr. Sawaguchi’s care in September of that year, after five months of rehabilitation, ignoring her advice to endure at least three more.

 

Genji gave a tiny nod and finally, _finally_ turned away.

 

He spoke a few words to Dr. Ziegler that Hanzo could not catch before he walked away, back towards and up the forward stairs and out of sight around the alcove below the cockpit stairs.

 

Dr. Ziegler looked torn, glancing between Hanzo and Genji’s departing form. Hanzo let himself lay back down, his head thudding loudly against the biobed, but the brief pain was lost in his thoughts as he stared at the high ceiling.

 

Hanzo’s jaws tightened again, clamping down painfully around an unlucky nub of flesh in his inner cheek. A burst of iron and copper flavor bloomed over his tongue.

 

Genji was perturbed, that much was obvious, but he _should not be._ What were Hanzo’s legs in comparison to Genji’s entire body? It was _foolish,_ it was _unnecessary,_ it was _ludicrous_ that Genji should react with anything other than--than a smug sense of triumph, perhaps, that Hanzo had suffering in some minuscule way, some sort of satisfaction that Hanzo had not escaped undeservedly whole from the debacle that cut Genji down in his prime.

 

But perhaps, Hanzo thought with a tightened chest and a cut-off breath, Genji had just realized how _little_ Hanzo had suffered. Where he had been reconstructed virtually from nothing and been sealed into a foreign, robotic whole-body prosthesis, Hanzo had managed to pay the infinitely smaller price of one-quarter of his legs.

 

How frustrating it must be to realize his murderer had escaped with only the smallest taste of repercussion!

 

Hanzo squeezed his eyes shut as Genji’s last question opened another possibility: did--did Genji believe _he_ had managed to take Hanzo’s legs somehow? Their battle had been short, short enough to barely merit the term, really, and once Genji had realized--

 

\--realized that Hanzo meant to--

 

\--that Hanzo was aiming to kill--

 

\--the look of panic in his eyes--

 

\--how much did he remember of the duel? He had landed some light hits, but Hanzo--

 

\--especially after Hanzo gave himself over to the dragons--

 

\--Genji _had_ aimed for his legs, trying to immobilize him, trying to strike in non-critical areas even as Hanzo--

 

\--was he ashamed or angry or frustrated or aggravated that he had done so little when Hanzo had done so much?

 

“-ent Shimada? _Agent Shimada?”_

 

Hanzo jolted straight upright, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. There was a clatter of metal that pierced through the rush of blood in his ears, but he ignored that for now, raising one arm to shield his face, his other drawn back, ready to strike at the nose or the solar plexus or the groin or whatever weakpoint presented itself first.

 

“Agent Shimada. It’s me, Agent McCree, the cowboy. You remember?”

 

Eyes narrowed, Hanzo scanned the room beyond the unfamiliar figure before him when he did not immediately attack but he snapped back to him when he shifted. He was standing on the other side of a bed--another bed, why was there another bed--hands raised, palms outward, a good distance away, not too close, not so close that Hanzo could not counter him unless he had a weapon _where was Storm Bow why was he unarmed--_

 

“Agent Shimada,” the cowboy said gently, and he _was_ the cowboy, recognition slamming into Hanzo with almost physical force. He became aware of his airless, empty lungs in the same moment, and he sucked in a breath, his body screaming for oxygen enough to nearly make him pant like he had just sprinted one hundred meters.

 

“Y-yes,” he stammered, pursing his lips at the feeling of sweat on his brow. “Yes,” he said, steadying his voice and lowering his arms. He rolled his shoulders back in an effort to loosen the strain in his back and neck, the muscles unknotting by a small amount.

 

The cowboy lowered his hands, too, shifting his weight to accentuate the lack of a holster on his hip. “Alright,” he said softly. “Alright. Now, what do you need? The biotic field’s probably helpin’ some, but what else do you need?”

 

“Nothing,” Hanzo said, ignoring the tightness in his chest that easily squeezed the air out and resisted drawing more in.

 

The cowboy bit his bottom lip.

 

“ _Smörja,_ ” muttered a voice. Hanzo started in the brief instant before he recognized it as Agent Torbjörn’s. “Get him some tea or something, McCree. Give his hands something to do and get him hydrated. Just decaf, though.”

 

Hanzo stiffened. “No, thank--”

 

“I remember it being important in Japan to respect one’s elders-slash-superiors, no? I’m both. Get the boy some decaf, McCree.”

 

Hanzo and the cowboy stared at each other for a few moments before the cowboy gave a small shrug. Hanzo let out a long breath, pursed his lips, wiped his brow, frowned at the tremor in his hands, and finally gave the smallest nod he could muster.

 

The cowboy gave a wan smile and went to the coffee machine, moving slowly and deliberately the whole way. Hanzo stayed where he was, his stubs dangling into a narrow space between his biobed and another that had appeared out of the wall. He shook his head minutely--the cowboy had put a barrier between himself and Hanzo before trying to get his attention. Prudent.

 

He glanced at the bioscanner. The twin beams that had been aimed at his stubs had disappeared at some point. He swung his legs back up onto the biobed, but they did not reappear. He cautiously rubbed at his stubs, feeling for the bruises and any chaffing that might have resulted from the inflammation, but he found none. There was still pain, however--the beginnings of prickling and cramping sensations in the empty air below his stubs. The phantom pain was about to return with a vengeance.

 

The golden biotic field remained active, though, so Hanzo remained where he was so as not to provoke the doctor, wherever she had disappeared off to. The warmth of it, however, was now distinctly uncomfortable. He moved back until he pressed his back into the cold metal of the wall. It helped, though he was not looking forward to adding hot tea to the mix.

 

He stared at the opposite wall, his hands twisted together in his lap, breathing deep to loosen his chest, trying to keep his mind from returning to that dark place--not here, with so many eyes, at least. There would be plenty of time for it in Hokkaido.

 

Pain began to sweep slowly down from his knees into the spaces his calves and feet should be.

 

“Agent Shimada?” The cowboy was waiting on the far side of the other biobed again, waiting for Hanzo to acknowledge him, a large mug in hand. _Two_ large mugs, in each hand.

 

“Got a hot tea and a cold tea,” he said, holding up one then the other. “Dunno how much you like cold tea, but--” He shrugged.

 

Hanzo stared at him for a moment, a trickle of sweat trailing down his temple, before clearing his throat. “The cold one. Please.”

 

The cowboy skirted around the end of the biobeds, still moving carefully, but not carefully enough, it seemed. He accidentally kicked one of Hanzo’s prosthetics--the sound earlier must have been them falling to the floor as Hanzo reacted without thinking--sending it rattling in the small space between the biobed and the wall. The cowboy hissed softly, backing off immediately.

 

Hanzo did start at the sudden noise, but he masked it as well as he could. He leaned down and grabbed at both prosthetics, setting them at his side once more. “My apologies,” he murmured. “I--”

 

“Naw, I--”

 

They both fell silent, and Hanzo pursed his lips. He reached out a hand, and the cowboy instantly came forward and handed him one of the mugs. He drank as soon as he wrapped his fingers around it, trying not to sniff or taste the no-doubt cheap and adulterated blend, but he was not expecting it to be _sweet._

 

He paused and looked up at the cowboy, who was looking at him with a hint of unease.

 

“Uh, just added some sugar like we do back home,” he explained before Hanzo could do or say anything. “Iced tea’s a lot better than cold tea, y’know?”

 

A beat.

 

“I can getcha another cup, won’ take a--”

 

“No,” said Hanzo, raising a hand. “No, this is fine. Thank you.” He swallowed a large gulp to placate the cowboy, though the rather shocking amount of sugar did make the underlying bitter tea far more palatable. It was superficially similar to _amacha_ or any number of sweetened drinks _,_ if Hanzo was being very generous.

 

“Oh. Alright, then.” The cowboy hovered for a moment, looking unsure. He took a tiny sip from the mug still in his hand and winced, from the flavor or the heat. He coughed and looked away. “I’ll, uh, I’ll leave you alone.”

 

“You feeling better, boy?” called Agent Torbjörn. “You need someone to sit with until yer steady?”

 

The cowboy scowled at the engineer. “Sorry,” he said, not looking at Hanzo. “We’ll be close by. Just holler if you need us.”

 

“Where--” blurted Hanzo, surprising even himself. “Where is--Genji?”

 

The cowboy bit his bottom lip before he answered. “Up below the cockpit. Angie’s with him--she was worried about the both of you, but I said I’d keep an eye on you while she checked on him. D’you need--either of them?”

 

“No!” The word was harsh in its forcefulness, and Hanzo pursed his lips and bowed his head. “No,” he repeated more softly. “I only wondered.”

 

A few beats, and the cowboy, with equal softness, “You got your comm with you, right?” Hanzo nodded silently. “Might be a good distraction, then. Lemme know if you need anything else, alright?” Another silent nod as Hanzo stared at his stubs, pale against the white surface of the biobed. The cowboy’s spurs jingled once, twice, but stopped again. “You--you might wanna roll down your pants or--or put your legs back on.”

 

Hanzo looked up at the cowboy’s wary face. The two men’s brows were equally furrowed, the cowboy’s with worry, Hanzo’s with confusion.

 

The cowboy cleared his throat out of nervousness. “It’s just--it might be better, not having--” he waved at Hanzo’s stubs, “--right there t’remind you.”

 

Hanzo considered, glancing at his stubs with a pronounced frown, but--the cowboy’s words felt right. If the doctor required another look, he could remove them again easily enough--and he _would_ feel better if he were fully mobile again, and he _might_ be able to calm the phantom pain if he flexed his prosthetic feet.

 

He nodded without looking back up and took ahold of one of his prosthetics, fitting it over one stub and letting the fasteners grab onto the disc embedded into his bones. As he worked, the cowboy’s spurs jingled once more as he joined Agent Torbjörn at the rec table, the two beginning a low conversation that Hanzo could not make out. He was thankful for it, though--it helped to know exactly where the other people in the room were.

 

Once he put on his legs and rolled down his pant legs, he sat for a few minutes staring straight ahead, mug in his lap and slowing pointing and relaxing his feet, trying to remind his brain what was and was not there. The phantom pain steadily increased for the first little while before plateauing, but in a way it was welcome. It was something to focus on, a problem to solve, even if it was largely unsolvable.

 

He sipped at the sugary, sugary tea, draining and setting the mug at his side in short order, freeing his hands for the comm. As he unlocked it, Athena’s last message reappeared. He moved to minimize it but hesitated, wondering if he should attempt to limit the AI’s--concern--but before he could ponder the question Dr. Ziegler was returning down the stairs.

 

She shot a momentary confused look at the other biobed as she approached, but she merely pushed it back into the wall without commenting, the biobed’s outline disappearing without even the smallest of cracks with the soft _whoosh_ of a vacuum seal. “How are you feeling, Agent Shimada?” she asked, looking him over.

 

“Fine, thank you,” he replied automatically. Dr. Ziegler raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but instead of voicing it she turned to the display. He laid his head back against the wall, but he watched her out of the corner of his eye, and this time he did not miss her frown.

 

“I think,” she said slowly, poking at the display, “that you may not be telling the truth. Again.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips and glared at the bioscanner above. Was it able to detect--

 

“The bioscanner is detecting high levels of nociception despite the complete biotic field cycle. You are in pain, Agent Shimada,” said Dr. Ziegler, keeping her voice low as she stepped away from the panel towards him, looking down at him with a serious expression. “Why?”

 

Hanzo swallowed. This conversation _would_ happen at such an awkward time. He minimized his words, merely gesturing at his legs with the comm and muttering, “Phantom pain. It will pass.”

 

The doctor did not reply beyond a sharp intake of breath. Hanzo looked up at her, his brow furrowed. She was staring at his prosthetics with an odd expression, her lips curled in an almost incredulous smile, but with her brows drawn down low over her dark blue eyes. After a few seconds she seemed to come to herself, sending a quick glance Hanzo’s way before she clapped a hand over her mouth and turned away. She mumbled something to herself in German, the words sounding--bitter, acidic. Hanzo stiffened at her tone, but fought the urge to move away.

 

“Angela?” Agent Torbjörn was laced with concern, though no less rough.

 

Dr. Ziegler waved at him with her free hand. “I’m fine,” she said, slightly muffled through her fingers. “I’m fine.”

 

Agent Torbjörn grunted. “I’ve heard that a lot today and haven’t believed it once.”

 

Angela laughed, shaking her head. “Don’t I know it.” But she seemed to shake herself out of her reverie. She thrust her hands into the pockets of her labcoat and turned back to Hanzo, all professionalism and calm. Speaking in a low voice once more, low enough for the two agents at the rec table not to overhear, she said, “Well, Agent Shimada, you are in--” She clamped her mouth shut for a moment, then tried again, the words forceful as though each one was catching slightly in her throat. “Phantom pain is one of my specialties, Agent Shimada. You’d be surprised by the wonders of modern medicine. I’ll be--I’ll be able to help you out with that, no problem.”

 

Hanzo peered at her for a moment or two, taking in her strange demeanor--and then a kind of horrifying understanding washed over him.   

 

Of course phantom pain must be something she was familiar with.

 

_Of course it was._

 

“That--!” Too loud, far too loud. “That will not be necessary, Dr. Ziegler. It is nothing, truly.”

 

She scowled. “It is not nothing, Agent Shimada,” she replied, nodding at the bioscanner.

 

He grit his teeth. “ _I_ say it is nothing,” he ground out.

 

“Yes, well, I already know what your word is w--” she snapped before she checked herself, but too late. Hanzo looked away, turning his gaze straight ahead, his jaw set, his fingernails digging into the comm, his back ramrod straight against the wall.

 

It was not silent--the conversation between Agents Torbjörn and McCree and the voices of the rest of Overwatch winding down the stairs kept sheer silence at bay, but it all seemed muted through a wall that seemed to spring up around Dr. Ziegler and himself.

 

Dr. Ziegler broke it after a tense period. “I meant it only,” she carefully said, “in relation to your legs, earlier. Nothing more.”

 

“Surely,” said Hanzo tonelessly. “But that does not change the disgust we _both_ feel using Genji’s anguish to benefit _me_ of all people.”

 

The doctor was quiet for a moment before she sighed. “No. No, it does not.”

 

But then she immediately surprised Hanzo. She walked around the end of the biobed and sat at the foot of it, facing the wall and leaning back on her hands, her fingertips scant centimeters from Hanzo’s feet, her legs crammed uncomfortably in the small space between the biobed and the wall panels.

 

She sat there for a few moments, her head tipped back, her eyes closed, and her lips set in a determined line, before she straightened and fixed Hanzo with a severe look. “Will you answer me truthfully?”

 

Hanzo blinked, surprised once more. He considered her question--it was dangerous to promise such a thing as the truth, but--he hid a sigh and slowly nodded.

 

“Is the pain debilitating?”

 

He blinked again. This conversation was not going as he expected at all. He shook his head.

 

“How have you been managing it?”

 

“Stretches, walking, and ibuprofen,” he listed off.

 

“Are they effective?”

 

He had to restrain an automatic yes. “No. They usually decrease the pain but they often do not eliminate it.”

 

“Has it been disturbing your sleep?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Are there specific triggers?”

 

Hanzo swallowed a lump in his throat. “Yes, but I would rather not discuss them.”

 

The doctor frowned but continued. “Do you believe this phantom pain will compromise your safety in Hokkaido?”

 

He shook his head.

 

She intensified her stare, narrowing her eyes and leaning towards him. “Are you _sure?_ ”

 

“I am sure.”

 

She maintained eye contact for a few moments, searching his face, but she settled back, her features softening slightly. “Then how do you feel about giving both of us time to cool down?”

 

Hanzo knitted his brows together. “I--do not understand.”

 

Dr. Ziegler turned away, rearranging her legs slightly. “I’m not in the best frame of mind to discuss your treatment right now,” she admitted. “And, forgive me, but it is obvious that you are in a worse state than I, and for good reason. So, given that your condition is currently manageable, I propose that we discuss it at a later date when we’re both thinking more clearly. I--” She stopped and sighed. “Frankly, even now I feel as though I should be appealing this to Winston and _insisting_ we bring you back to Gibraltar, but--I also behaved inappropriately just now. I’m sorry.”

 

She held up a hand to forestall Hanzo’s protest. “I’m sorry, but I’m also _not_ sorry, you understand? And that is a problem if we’re going to ensure your best care. If these were the old days, I would have colleagues that could--” She stopped short, her eyes widening. “Hmm. That might be--well. That is an idea to consider later, with a cool head.” She looked back at him with a serious expression, lips tight. “I’m sorry that I’m not performing at my best for you, Agent Shimada. I will endeavor to do better.”

 

“You do not have to do any more than what is strictly necessary, Dr. Ziegler,” Hanzo said quietly. “I am fully aware that treating me is--”

 

“--is my sworn duty, as a doctor and as an Overwatch agent,” she interrupted, her voice firm. “This, here and now, is _my_ failure, irrespective of you.”

 

“You should not think of it that way,” Hanzo insisted. “It is unreasonable.”

 

She lifted her chin. “As unreasonable as refusing treatment for an entirely curable condition?”

 

Hanzo opened his mouth but had no answer and, maddeningly, she was smugly aware that he had none, judging from the small smile that flitted across her face before she sobered. “In--in the meantime, I have painkillers that may be more effective than ibuprofen, but only a limited supply. They’d still be useful during particularly bad bouts.”

 

Hanzo shook his head. More powerful painkillers invariably came with unacceptable side effects, the most terrifying being simple drowsiness, but Dr. Ziegler was apparently familiar with similar objections. “They are nanites rather than drugs,” she said in a slightly admonishing tone. “They come with far fewer side effects. You can test them right now and judge for yourself--it’s a long flight. Plenty of time for them to wear off if you do not approve.”

 

Hanzo shook his head again. Frankly, _any_ treatment was more than his due, more than--

 

“Hanzo, take the painkillers.”

 

Both Hanzo and the doctor flinched, the doctor whipping her head around. Genji had come down the stairs completely silently while Hanzo had been focused on the doctor, and though he was still far closer to the foot of the stairway than he was to the biobed, he was clearly close enough to overhear.

 

“Genji!” the doctor scolded as she stood. “I realize we’re sitting out in the open, but this is a private conversation!”

 

Genji bowed his head. “Of course, Angela. I apologize,” he said humbly. But when his head came back up, the green line of his visor was locked on Hanzo for an uncomfortable three or four seconds before he swiveled on his heel with a choppy movement and climbed the stairs again.

 

Dr. Ziegler was scowling when she looked back at Hanzo. “I’m sorry, I should have insisted on some more obvious privacy.”

 

“It is nothing,” replied Hanzo, closing his eyes and tipping his head back against the wall once more. “Thank you for offering the painkillers, Dr. Ziegler. I will be happy to test them.”

 

She said nothing for a long while. “Agent Shimada,” she said in a hushed voice. “If you’re only--”

 

“As you say, it is unreasonable to refuse treatment.”

 

Another long silence. “Just a moment, I’ll just need to fetch them from the cargo hold.” Her footsteps moved away, but Hanzo did not open his eyes. He returned to flexing his feet to stave off both the phantom pain and the frustration from benefitting from Genji’s misplaced pity.

 

Of all the thorns he carried in his side, he had never expected Genji’s pity.

 

A thorn of pity in place of a sword of vengeance.

 

_Why._

 

“Uh, hey? You alright?”

 

Hanzo’s eyes popped open, but he was pleased to find that was now the extent of his uncontrolled, kneejerk reactions.

 

Before him, standing off to one side with head tilted and eyes wide with concern, was Agent Lúcio.

 

“Man, you look like you got body checked by the whole other team!” he exclaimed as he came closer. “You need anything? Hana’s got all her snacks out up in the cockpit, I could go back up and grab you some. I had to peace out when she dared everyone to try some, uh--ai yeh shhhh--” He scrunched up his face in concentration. “Wait, I remember it, it’s--ai yeh shhh, ai yeh shuu--”

 

“Aye _-shyuh_ ,” supplied Hanzo, looking quizzically at the other man.

 

“What?” asked Agent Lúcio, his face smoothing into a friendly smile.

 

Hanzo narrowed his eyes slightly at the sight, but he carried on. “The extremely sour candies, correct?”

 

“Yeah, but shouldn’t it be _ai yeh_ or something?”

 

“No,” said Hanzo, shaking his head slightly. “It is ‘aye’, referring to pirates. The _shyuh_ is a more traditionally Korean pirate expression.”

 

“Ohh, I get it,” said Agent Lúcio, nodding fervently. He withdrew an enormous smartphone--or perhaps his small hands only made it look so large--from a pocket of his pants and tapped at the screen. “The translation app let me down.”

 

He poked at the screen for a few seconds, leaving Hanzo to wonder why he had approached him in the first place, but soon enough the younger man looked up again. “Eh, I can deal with that later.” He waved at the biotic field that still shimmered around the biobed. “How long you got until you’re done?”

 

“I do not know,” Hanzo replied, glancing about the room briefly, not sure where the doctor had gone to access the cargo bay.

 

“Well, we can chat until she gets back,” Agent Lúcio said brightly, plopping down on the end of the biobed. He threw his head back as the biotic field closed around him, exposing the long column of his neck and tensing the muscles under the ink of his frog tattoo. Hanzo blinked at the attractive display before he averted his eyes.

 

It did not help when Agent Lúcio breathily sighed. “Ahhh. Almost as good as ‘Rejuvenescência’.” He blinked his eyes open and tipped his head slightly to look at Hanzo with a lazy grin, his dreadlocks swinging behind his back. “No wonder you’re hanging out here. No better place to be, right?”

 

Hanzo refrained from rolling his eyes. “I had some bruising from the mission. Dr. Ziegler wanted to be sure there were no other wounds.”

 

Agent Lúcio frowned. “Bad enough for a biotic field? Why didn’t you say anything? Is that part of your clan’s bullshit code or something?” Hanzo’s eyes sharpened as he bristled slightly, and Agent Lúcio did not miss the change. He straightened and raised his hands slightly. “Whoa! Sorry, was that the wrong thing to say?”

 

Hanzo looked away, breathing deep to force down his annoyance. It was no surprise that an outsider would not care for or show proper respect to the clan or its ways. With only Genji and Hanzo as living representatives, it would be easy to do so.

 

“No,” he said at last.

 

“Uh, I think ‘yes’,” Agent Lúcio disagreed, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it. The _milícias_ back home keep ahold of people’s heads for years after they leave, too. We got a lot of ex- _milicianos_ in the Resistance, though, so don’t you worry, I know people can turn over a new leaf,” he finished with a wink.

 

Hanzo stared impassively back. “Turn over a new leaf”? Was that what Agent Lúcio believed was happening here?

 

Agent Lúcio met his gaze confidently, his smile failing to falter in the slightest bit.

 

The doctor returned before either could break the strange silence that had fallen between them. “Here we are, Agent Shimada,” she said cheerily, her humor or her playacting seemingly recovered. She carried a large opaque amber bottle in one hand. She twisted off the lid and shook out two large black pills as she came near and offered them to Hanzo. “Here, hand me that mug and I’ll get you some water to wash them down.” Hanzo complied and examined the pills as she went to the coffee machine. They were bigger and thicker than any pill he had ever seen and he reflexively swallowed at the thought of the likely discomfort they would cause if he swallowed them dry as was his habit.

 

He waited for the doctor. She returned and handed him the mug. “One at a time,” she cautioned, and she watched him pop first one into his mouth with a generous gulp of water, than the other. He tried not to grimace at the unpleasant feeling of them working their way down his throat.

 

“There,” she said, crossing over to the lit panel on the wall and switching off the biotic field. There was a slight whooshing feeling around Hanzo as the warm air the biotic field produced swept upwards towards the ceiling, replaced by a brief breeze of much cooler, more comfortable air. “It should start working in less than fifteen minutes. Let me know of any discomfort. Here’s the bottle.” Hanzo nodded wordlessly as he accepted it. Even if there were side-effects, under Genji’s orders he would be taking these painkillers with him.

 

Agent Lúcio was observing them. Hanzo waited for him to begin a line of questioning about the pills and their purpose, but to his slight surprise he did not. “So! You wanna head over to the rec table and talk about the bunker now that you’re done with everyone else?”

 

“Of--of course,” Hanzo said as he swung his legs to the floor and stood. Perhaps Agent Lúcio did have some restraint after all, though his motivations for approaching Hanzo after his reaction to his confession remained mystifying.

 

“Good idea,” said the doctor as she slid the bed back into the wall. To Hanzo’s further surprise she accompanied them. The cowboy and Agent Torbjörn saw them coming, and while the engineer did not move a centimeter, the cowboy scooted to the end of the loveseat and stood.

 

“C’mon in,” he said with a smile. “Been keeping an eye on your stuff for ya,” he added, addressing Hanzo and gesturing at Storm Bow. It had been moved, Hanzo saw with automatic distaste, but he refrained from picking it up immediately to inspect it and deny others access to it, no matter how much his fingers itched.

 

The cowboy unexpectedly came to his rescue. “Take a look at it,” he said encouragingly, “If you find something t’fix, we got all of Torbjörn’s stuff here t’use.”

 

Agent Lúcio and Dr. Ziegler chose spots around the table as the cowboy spoke. Dr. Ziegler sat primly by Agent Torbjörn while Agent Lúcio collapsed off to the side of Storm Bow and patted the seat next to him while beaming up at Hanzo.

 

Agent Torbjörn sighed. “Don’t touch anything ye don’t know how to use,” he warned in a threatening tone. The cowboy rolled his eyes.

 

“Don’ think that Agent Shimada here would ever do such a thing,” he remarked as he settled by Dr. Ziegler. “Not really the kind t’do anything half-assed.”

 

Hanzo absorbed the cowboy’s words without comment, hiding his narrowed eyes by picking up Storm Bow and running his fingers over its surface, checking for anything amiss but finding nothing. “May I put it away?” he asked while testing the springiness of the limbs.

 

“Not yet,” said the engineer. He was peering through an eyepiece that resembled a jeweler’s loupe glasses at the exposed interior of one of Hanzo’s camouflage suit’s battery packs. “This is gonna take more time than I thought, as usual. The couplers and wire contacts in the diodes need replacing and the distributed CPU net is on the verge of cascade failure. It’s screaming for an upgrade.”

 

Hanzo’s teeth audibly clicked together--he could see Agent Lúcio wince as he glared at the engineer. “How long?” he forced out, trying and mostly failing to keep his displeasure hidden.

 

“Heh, ye asking for a completion date?” Agent Torbjörn asked, a smile spreading across his face as he bent to examine the suit closer. “Fine: when it’s done.”

 

“Hey now, Torbjörn,” interjected the cowboy, leaning on the table with crossed arms, “He ain’ used t’your brand of customer service. Try and give ‘im a little more than _that._ ”

 

The engineer glanced up at the cowboy. “Long after we get to Hokkaido.”

 

Hanzo grimaced. The suit was one of his most precious possessions, for more reasons than just its monetary value and utter irreplaceability, and the longer he watched the engineer tear it apart, the stronger the urge to rip it out of his grasp became--but he was, once again, being irrational. He could not hope to complete or even undo the engineer’s work if he interrupted it now.

 

A more rational fear was whether Agent Torbjörn intended to return the suit at all--he had plainly expressed irritation to find it in Hanzo’s possession.

 

But the whole thing was out of Hanzo’s hands, and if this was how he lost the suit there was nothing he could do but mourn it and work around it as he had always done with his losses.

 

He tore his gaze away from the suit and stiffly sat at Agent Lúcio’s side. The younger man looked sympathetic; he even patted Hanzo’s shoulder, which was nothing short of astonishing. Hanzo endured it with little more than quirked eyebrows, but he could not help but wonder at the swift return of the young man’s familiar behavior.

 

“Sorry, man. I know how you feel,” Agent Lúcio said consolingly. “Torres here had my amplifier in his shop for _weeks_ after I first arrived. Thought I was gonna have to go steal another one from Vishkar. _Speaking of which,_ ” he said with evident pleasure as he leaned towards Hanzo with an almost feral grin. “How many of them did you take out while you were breaking in and out?”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow. “None.”

 

Agent Lúcio blinked in surprise as he gave a low whistle that sounded similar to the whistles the cowboy sometimes gave. “Wow. Not even at their dormitories?”

 

“No, but only out of sheer luck,” said Hanzo, looking down at Storm Bow in his hands and idly picking at a nonexistent speck. “If I had been seen, I would have been detained or killed.”

 

“Oh, c’mon!” laughed Agent Lúcio, shoving lightly at Hanzo. “We’ve all seen Genji in action! You telling me some half-baked architechs got anything on you?”

 

Hanzo shifted as he rocked back from the push, resettling his weight to lean ever-so-slightly away. “Pebbles are indistinguishable from the boulder during a rockslide.”

 

“You don’t gotta tell _me_ that,” said Agent Lúcio, leaning back with his elbows hooked on the backrest, his smile easy and relaxed. “That’s how Rio got rid of Vishkar. Didn’t matter how much they threw their weight around when all of us pushed back. But you got an ace up your sleeve, right?” He lowered his voice a small amount. “You got a _dragon._ I bet Vishkar wouldn’t see _that_ coming!”

 

Hanzo grunted. “Perhaps not.” Though now that the dragons were apparently a talking point, how long they would remain unexpected and uncountered was anyone’s guess. For centuries the dragons were indeed an ace in the hole, but the world was changing. Some of the clan elders had been fearful that the near-magical inventions in the realms of medical technology and artificial intelligence _were_ magical in some way, that the spiritual realm was on the verge of some sort of invasion by the mortal plane on a road paved with the ever-accelerating pace of technological advancement.

 

Even if there was something to that fear, it seemed any efforts to keep the secrets of the clan from outsiders had been in vain. Who knew how much Genji had revealed to Overwatch and how far afield that information had ultimately gone?

 

Although, the elders being the elders, their main fear had nothing to do with any concern for the spiritual realm itself, but rather with maintaining the Shimada-gumi’s monopoly on its exploitation. With the demise of the Shimada-gumi and no prospect of continuing the lineage, that particular point was moot. The dragons had dwindled from the unique retainers of an ancient and noble house to the last resort of a ignoble drifter. The world would lose little if some architech or weapons researcher found a way to counter them--even Genji would lose nothing. He had been on the verge of defeating Hanzo when he called on the dragons--and even that last act of desperation had been wasted.

 

“Hey. Hey!”

 

Hanzo blinked and looked up into Agent Lúcio’s concerned face. “You okay, man?” he asked, placing a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder and squeezing. Hanzo glanced around the rec table--Agent Torbjörn was paying no attention, but both the cowboy and the doctor were leaning forward with matching knit eyebrows. He almost shrank back from under the attention, squeezing Storm Bow with hands whose knuckles were already white.

 

“Yes, I apologize. I became distracted,” he said, laying Storm Bow in his lap and folding his hands on top. “Winston wished for us to speak of the bunker, did he not?”

 

“He sure did!” said Agent Lúcio, hardly reacting to the clumsy change of subject. “So, what’s it like inside a Satellite Campus bunker? See anything interesting?”

 

Hanzo carefully considered the question. The layout and contents of the bunker seemed to be in line with the standard floorplan Agent Lúcio himself had provided, right down to the suspiciously low level of security. There had been nothing that Hanzo had seen that was out of the ord--

 

No. That was not right.

 

“Was there a fusion plant in the Rio de Janeiro installation?” he asked, his tone even.

 

Agents Lúcio and McCree glanced at each other, the cowboy with a raised eyebrow, Agent Lúcio with undisguised confusion. “A fusion plant?” said Agent Lúcio slowly. “No? I don’t--I mean, why would they need one? One of the reasons they came to Rio was because the government guaranteed they’d _always_ get two gigawatts of power from Itaipú Dam, no matter what--they even shut off the power to the rest of Rio during the drought two years ago! Why would they need to do that if they already had a fusion plant?”

 

“That is also a good question, then, for the Kurnool District,” replied Hanzo, leaning back slightly. “They are regularly experiencing brownouts because Vishkar consumes all the production of the dams on the Krishna--yet there was at least one sign pointing to a fusion plant by one of the stairways in the bunker.”

 

“Which one?” asked the cowboy, patting at his sides and legs until he made a small noise of discovery and pulled out his comm. “The first one by the battery room or--”

 

“Yes, that one,” said Hanzo, bracing himself for questions about why he had not mentioned it before or something to that effect--the cowboy had been suspicious of his stop in Mandlem after all.

 

But there was nothing of the sort. The cowboy only fiddled with his screen, biting his bottom lip with a look on concentration. “Which way the sign point?”

 

“To the left of an onlooker exiting the stairway,” replied Hanzo precisely.

 

The cowboy nodded, frowning at his comm. “Not a lot of room over that way. The archives are already there, unless there weren’ any?”

 

Hanzo had to concentrate on the fleeting memory of everything on the sign besides the fusion plant and the central servers. “I--believe there were, but I am not certain,” he said reluctantly. “In the same direction, as you say.” He pursed his lips as he thought back, trying to glean any more details besides his surprise at finding any mention of a plant at all and his general hurry to move on to the actual objective of the mission. “I--I also believe it said something about ‘Level B’. ‘Fusion Plant: Level B’.”

 

“Yeah, it’d have t’be pretty big,” the cowboy said thoughtfully, running his fingers over his trimmed beard. “It’d take up more than one floor for sure. But what’s it doin’ there? Hey, Athena? Vishkar don’ trade in fusion tech, right?”

 

“That is correct, Agent McCree,” answered the AI from somewhere above. “They do not list it as a product or service in any of their publications, nor have they announced any intention of developing or obtaining it to their shareholders.”

 

“Which is pretty weird in and of itself,” mused the cowboy, tapping a metallic finger on the table while continuing to stroke his beard with his flesh hand. “You’d think they’d be all over it, specially if they’re havin’ supply problems at one of their biggest facilities.”

 

Hanzo hesitated, not used to volunteering information, but this _had_ been an Overwatch mission. “It is especially strange because there is considerable controversy over the power supply,” he said, wincing slightly when everyone’s attention returned to him but soldiering on. “Vishkar has a poor reputation among the populace outside the Inner Ring, and the brownouts are further undermining their standing. If they had this extra source of power, it would be wise to announce their intention and implementation as soon as possible to salvage their image--but they have chosen not to do so.”

 

“Why?” pondered the cowboy outloud, his tongue between his teeth.

 

Agent Lúcio snorted. “As if they care what people think!” he said with scorn. “Here’s what’s going on: they’ve maxed out the dams they already got but need more juice for their developments! You said they were sucking towns outside the Inner Ring dry, right?” he asked, turning to Hanzo with a burning look. At Hanzo’s nod, he threw his hands up. “See?! They’re looking to expand, but they need more power! Fusion plants don’t look like much from the outside, so they’re the perfect way to have your own private power plants without anyone knowing! So they’re slapping them together inside their bunkers so they’re ready to go when they’re ready to expand!”

 

“That’s a solid theory,” said the cowboy with a slow smile. “Question is, how do we prove it?”

 

“Uh--” said Agent Lúcio, scrunching up his face again. “Maybe he already got some proof off of the servers?”

 

The cowboy glanced at Hanzo. “Always helps t’have multiple lines of evidence,” he said diplomatically, but Hanzo understood the implication--if the data he had retrieved proved to be useless--

 

The cowboy suddenly snapped his metal fingers with that odd pinging noise. “Wait a minute. Mei! Hey, Mei! You got a sec?” he yelled at the top of his lungs towards the stairs.

 

Agent Mei answered, her voice far harder to catch, but before the cowboy could yell again, Athena chimed in. “She is on her way, Agent McCree.”

 

“Swell,” said Agent McCree with a cheeky grin.

 

“What’re you yelling about, cowboy?!” Hanzo stiffened when Agent D.Va came bounding down the steps, followed by Agent Mei more than a few steps behind, fidgeting with and unrolling the long sleeves of her sweater over her hands. “You’re making more noise than one of my Zerg rushes.” She nearly imperceptibly yet visibly stopped short for a brief moment when she saw Hanzo, but attempted to continue as though she had not, coming towards the rec table and deliberately bumping against it.

 

“Hey!” grumbled Agent Torbjörn, his claw clamping viselike onto it, stilling it instantly. “Watch it!”

 

Agent D.Va giggled. “Whoops,” she said in a sickly saccharine tone. The engineer rolled his bright blue eye at her, though it was obviously twinkling. “So? What’s going on?”

 

The cowboy did not answer, his grin turning into a thin-lipped smile until Agent Mei approached, when it relaxed into something more natural. “Heya, Mei, Agent Shimada here was just tellin’ us that Vishkar might have some secret power plants in the bunker he busted into.”

 

“Oh! Really?” she said, turning a friendly smile to Hanzo. Hanzo nodded silently and she _beamed._ “Wow, you really did find a lot in there, didn’t you?”

 

“Sure did!” said the cowboy, drawing back her attention, saving her from seeing Hanzo’s flat, disbelieving look in return. Was she following a similar line of thought as Agent Lúcio? “But we gotta confirm it if we can. I was wonderin’ if you could get a look at the Kurnool District with one of your weather satellites, look for some hot spots that shouldn’ be there?”

 

She hummed, tilting her head and sending the eight-pointed star hanging off her hairpin swinging. “Well, they’re not _my_ weather satellites, but I’ve already been reinstated by EUMETSAT and NOAA. I’m still waiting to hear back from the JMA and ISRO, though--ISRO would probably have the best dataset to work with.”

 

The cowboy frowned, mirroring Hanzo. “I dunno, Mei, would there be a record of you lookin’ a bit too close at Vishkar properties if you went through ISRO?”

 

Agent Mei’s eyes widened. “Oh! Yes, there might! Sorry, I’m not used to thinking like, well, uh--sorry, maybe I _should_ just go through one of the others if there’s a chance Vishkar might find out!” she said almost breathlessly, wringing her hands in front of herself.

 

“That’ll do fine,” said the cowboy with a disarming smile.

 

Her good humor returned almost instantly along with her smile. “I’ll get Snowball to log in and access the latest images,” she promised. She began to walk away, but stopped and turned towards Hanzo instead.

 

“I--I hope this doesn’t make things awkward,” she said, her smile still genuine but slightly unsure, “but I just--um, Genji was excited for us to meet you, and he--he wants us to get to know you. I know that you and he--” She faltered for a moment, and Hanzo was stunned to see her lip quiver and a slight sheen appear over her expressive brown eyes. She pulled herself together in short order, however, blinking rapidly and smiling wider in an effort to stretch her lip into submission. “I know you have a painful past, but it’s just that: the past. So, um--I’m still happy that Genji found you and that we get to meet you. Welcome to the team!” she concluded as she bowed her head low.

 

Hanzo did not react for a dumbstruck moment before he jerkily returned the bow, nonplussed both by the open, earnest tone of her pronouncement and the slap on the back he received from Agent Lúcio. “Yeah, man! If Genji can get past it, so can we! Besides,” he said conspiratorially, leaning in towards Hanzo, “think of all the badass stuff you can do being put to good use! You’re already helping to bring down Vishkar--that’s enough to get free drinks anywhere in Rio! And we don’t give away drinks to just _anyone,_ ” he said with another wink.

 

Hanzo’s chest was constricting once again, his breath forced out of him and each heartbeat reverberating through his ribs. He swallowed thickly and drew in a deep rush of air, trying to regain some measure of lung capacity, enough at least to defy this--whatever _this_ was.

 

“It--it is good of you to--to indulge Genji’s wishes,” he said, trying to strengthen his voice beyond a sullen-sounding mumble, “but it is unnecessary. It is not a matter of ‘getting past it’, it is--”

 

“Beggin’ your pardon, Agent Shimada,” interrupted the cowboy gently, tipping his hat back but looking down at the table. “But I think that’s _exactly_ what this is about. Gettin’ past it, I mean. That’s--that’s something that’s been asked on behalf of an awful lotta Overwatch agents,” he said self-consciously, his cheeks reddening. “So, uh--it ain’ _unnecessary._ I’d say it’s essential.” The flush in the cowboy’s cheeks deepened as he glanced up at Hanzo. “So. Uh. Whether or not y’think you deserve it, it’s best t’jus’--let people be decent to ya. Specially since Mei and Luz here were probably gonna do it anyway, jus’ cuz that’s the way they are.”

 

Agent Mei blushed and Agent Lúcio stood up and swatted playfully at the cowboy, saying, “Aww, _stahp,_ McCree, or me and Mei are both gonna have to start hugging people!”

 

Agent Torbjörn, however, began to swat at _him_ . “Mind the table, _mind the table!_ This is delicate work, ye bullfrog!” Agent Lúcio burst out laughing as he reeled back, bumping the table as he collapsed back in his seat and bounced right back up thanks to the gel cushion, and Agent Torbjörn began a loud diatribe in angry-sounding Swedish, which Agent Lúcio began to answer in smooth yet flippant Portuguese.

 

Past the bickering agents, Dr. Ziegler and the cowboy sat in silence. They both seemed to be staring at the table, though the cowboy had pulled the brim of his hat low over his face. Dr. Ziegler, on the other hand, looked rather pink in the face, with her lips pressed in a firm thin line.

 

Agent D.Va was staring straight at Hanzo with an unreadable expression, he realized, only looking away when Hanzo caught her. She turned around and leaned back against the table, her shoulders rising and falling with a deep breath.

 

Well. Despite the cowboy’s words--obviously influenced by Winston and with an unknown amount of sincerity behind them--it was clear that substantial obstacles remained.

 

Agent Mei coughed to get his attention. “Would--would you like to come see the satellite images?” she asked in a small voice. Then, with more confidence, “You can come meet Snowball in the meantime! He should be finished charging by now.”

 

Snowball?

 

“Yeah, that’s a good idea!” gushed Lúcio, switching in mid-sentence back to English. “C’mon,” he said to Hanzo, poking at his shoulder. “We’ll have a better idea of how badass you were if we can see the Campus!”

 

Hanzo obeyed, placing Storm Bow back on the rec table and sliding out of the loveseat, as much as he loathed leaving Storm Bow behind again. Agent Mei beamed once more, and she led the way towards the stairs, to his initial despair since Genji was still up there. To his relief, however, she stopped at the conference table off to the side of them. Hanzo positioned himself on the other side to better see the rec table, with Agent Lúcio at his side. Agent Mei tapped at the controls on its surface, and the holographic globe appeared, rotating slowly in place. “Wait here, I’ll just go get Snowball,” she said as she jogged up the stairs.

 

Agent Lúcio stretched his arms upward with a deep breath and a sigh. “Wow,” he murmured, “We’re already halfway there. Time flies when you’re having fun, huh?” And indeed, the globe had rotated to show the eastern half of Eurasia and a pulsing blue-and-white marker indicating the Orca’s position over central China, somewhere close to Lijiang Spaceport.

 

But Hanzo could not contain a small scoff at Agent Lúcio’s choice of words. Time had indeed gone by much faster than the last time Hanzo had embarked on an “Orca Airlines” flight after two days of minimal sleep, but he would not cite “fun” as the reason.

 

“Hey, by the way, how’re your legs doing?” asked Agent Lúcio suddenly.

 

“Fine,” Hanzo replied automatically--but it was true, he realized, shifting from one leg to the other. The phantom pain had disappeared sometime in the time he had been sitting. He looked over towards the rec table. Agent D.Va was leaning across it, watching Agent Torbjörn work, and the cowboy and the doctor were speaking in low voices, the cowboy’s hat still drawn low over his face.

 

The doctor looked up and caught his eye. She raised her eyebrows questioningly, glancing at his legs.

 

He glanced down as well before he nodded at her slowly. She smiled--with no small amount of relief--before she returned to her conversation with the cowboy, who had pushed back his hat to glance between the two.

 

Hanzo turned away, a pronounced frown on his face as he continued to gingerly test his legs, as though the wrong move might bring back a wave of the phantom pain--but of course nothing happened.

 

Instead, a strong wave of guilt surged through him to wallow in the pit of his belly, and he bowed his head with his eyes shut tight.

 

“Hey, man, you okay?” A light touch on his shoulder made Hanzo shudder, and he quickly forced the guilt down and his eyes to open, a bit blearily against the bright yellow of the globe before him.

 

“Fine,” he said, just as automatically as the first time. He glanced down at Agent Lúcio, whose eyes were narrowed yet soft with concern. He tried to ward it off. “I was thinking of my journey after we arrive in Iwaki.”

 

“I getcha,” said Agent Lúcio, nodding, though the concern did not entirely leave his face. He seemed to hesitate, but after a few moments of deliberation, he pushed through it. “It’s too bad you’re not coming back with us, man. Really. I don’t like the idea of us leaving you all alone when Vishkar could be out looking for you. You--you sure about going all the way out there? _Alone?_ ”

 

Hanzo stared at him and only barely refrained from shaking his head in disbelief. This man--! Did he not remember what Hanzo himself had told him? Did he not remember his own disgusted, horrified reaction when Hanzo had revealed his sordid, shameful history?

 

Yet now, somehow, here he was, worrying over a man, a _murderer_ he had known for a bare five hours--that was an impressive leap, and Hanzo could not imagine why he would trouble himself to make it. Agent Lúcio was obviously idealistic and fervent in his beliefs, which was all the more reason to leave Hanzo to his own devices and save Overwatch’s efforts and resources for the masses of people far more in need and deserving of their aid. Why focus even an iota of concern on _Hanzo_ of all people? It was bad enough that Hanzo expended the effort to preserve himself.

 

“I will be fine,” he said, turning towards the globe. “Vishkar has a very limited presence in Japan, and none at all north of Tokyo. The Ainu are especially opposed to foreign corporations working in their prefecture--even more so after the news out of Rio de Janeiro.”

 

“Really?” grinned Agent Lúcio. “Do we _cariocas_ have kindred in Hokkaido? I should give a concert there!”

 

Hanzo did not reply. He was consumed by his thoughts.

 

It must have something to do with Genji. He must have somehow wormed some form of mercy or compassion--or _forgiveness_ \--into the younger agent’s head when Winston had called him in to speak after Hanzo’s confession, as the Omnic monk had done with Genji himself. It also seemed that Winston himself had attitudes and beliefs that easily resonated with Genji’s wrongheaded idea of forgiveness, which helped to explain much of the gorilla’s acceptance of Hanzo into Overwatch’s service, but it was breathtaking how far this whole business had gone and how many people were being sucked into the notion that it was worth tolerating Hanzo.

 

In the case of the cowboy, that notion somehow went so far as to _defend_ him, which struck Hanzo as unbelievable--but if the cowboy was falsifying any of his--his behavior, he was playing a dangerous game unless Agents Lúcio and Mei were consummate actors. If they were, then this whole business was an elaborate ploy to lower Hanzo’s guard so that when the turn came the cowboy would be only one of three or more attackers.

 

Agent Lúcio rocked back and forth on his heels as Hanzo watched him out of the corner of his eye, his head thrown back, eyes closed, humming a complex tune. If this diminutive yet forthright young man was any kind of actor--

 

Even Hanzo’s paranoia was skeptical.

 

\--then the cowboy’s behavior would mean that when the turn came, he would likely be acting _against_ several of his comrades. Before he had no one opposing him besides Genji--surely everyone else would have been easily convinced that Hanzo was not and never had been trustworthy, but the cowboy was actively working to convince them that--that even if Hanzo was not trustworthy, he may yet be.

 

Which was absurd.

 

It was entirely possible, of course, that the cowboy’s intentions were far more clandestine, which would be in keeping with his black ops background. He could be painting himself as Hanzo’s supporter so that when some awful fate “happened” to befall Hanzo, the cowboy could believably feign dismay and regret and cite that support as evidence that he was the last to wish harm on Hanzo. Again.

 

So, in the end, the cowboy still required vigilance.

 

But--

 

But as Agent Mei descended the stairs, all smiles with a small blue-white dronelike robot hovering at her shoulder and Agent Lúcio strode towards them and offered a fistbump to the robot--which it returned with its diode face--Hanzo could not help but reflect on the fact that, whatever the cowboy’s intentions, at the present moment they meant that two of Overwatch’s agents seemed committed to treating Hanzo cordially despite--everything.

 

And that, in turn, meant that the next few hours before Hanzo was released onto familiar territory to fade into utter isolation were most likely going to be far easier to endure than Hanzo had any right to expect.

 

And that--

 

That was something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really really really wanted to leave Hanzo in some kind of good place for once. For _once_.
> 
> It is still 7 December where I am, and thus for me it is still the first anniversary of _Afterdrop_ 's publication!!! I'd like to take the opportunity to thank you all so, SO much for all the kudos, comments, hits, and bookmarks! _Afterdrop_ has been the balm throughout a tough year, and I'm so glad that people enjoy it enough to offer so many kind words and encouragement. I hope you continue to enjoy it!!!
> 
> And more extremely talented artists have submitted art inspired by _Afterdrop_!
> 
> First, [hellomynameisandiam](http://hellomynameisandiam.tumblr.com/) has drawn [this scene from Chapter 13 of Hanzo and McCree under the portico in the rain!!](http://hellomynameisandiam.tumblr.com/post/167503060842/hanzos-rigid-posture-sagged-his-successes-were) They even incorporated the columns from Brihadeeswara Temple! Such a delight to see!!
> 
> Next, [Chromatocloo](https://chromatocloo.tumblr.com/), author of the excellent "[Lucid Dream](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9816236/chapters/28660652)", drew the [climatic scene from Chapter Four](https://chromatocloo.tumblr.com/post/167350780906/doodles-based-on-this-chapter-of-the-amazing) of Hanzo [being possessed by the dragons!](https://chromatocloo.tumblr.com/post/167602441386/follow-up-to-this-%CA%95-%E1%B4%A5-%CA%94-more-doodles-based-on) It is a fantastic piece of work!! I put in the ending notes of Chapter Four as well!
> 
> Last, [Bluandorange](http://bluandorange.tumblr.com/) drew [Hanzo's lovely, unspoiled visage from Chapter Five](http://bluandorange.tumblr.com/post/167786961620/that-one-time-in-claroquequiza-s-fanfic) after passing out in the sun--as well as poor Jesse's reaction. Absolutely great work!!
> 
> Thank you so much, this and all the artwork Afterdrop has received is a treasure!!!
> 
> Once again, thank you all so much for your support and well wishes! I always look forward to writing this story, thanks to you all!!!


	15. Across the Strait

The next few hours, true to Hanzo’s prediction, went by fairly rapidly and smoothly.

 

Agent Mei quickly confirmed that the Satellite Campus contained several hotspots, zooming in on the rotating globe until the Kurnool District in infrared filled the view with the cool blue swath of the Somasila Reservoir embracing the red-and-white speckled Inner Ring and outlying suburbs. Still, the Campus hotpots could easily have been explained away as by-products of the servers and other energy-intensive electronics that maintained the hardlight structures, but Agent Mei pointed out the real damning evidence with a wide satisfied smile: there were plumes of warm water spreading out from the shore of the Campus into the reservoir.

 

She and Athena switched the view to several other power plants, fusion, fission, and one of the last remaining hydrocarbon plants, to confirm the general pattern of plumes of wastewater from cooling the steam in the turbines ubiquitous to any power plant, and the resemblance was indisputable.

 

Agent Mei’s tiny floating drone, whom she had introduced as “Snowball” as it bobbed in midair as a greeting, even used the heat signatures of the other plants’ plumes to provide a rough estimate of the suspected power generation within the Campus. It hovered over her shoulder, waiting for specific requests but also apparently taking odd jobs like that upon itself, coming up with a surprisingly high guess of 1.5 gigawatts, nearly equal to the Somasila Dam that ostensibly powered the Satellite Campus and Inner Ring with nothing left over. Athena confirmed the estimation, arriving at nearly the same amount.

 

Agent Lúcio almost seemed to expect this. “We knew they were lying to _us_ from the getgo,” he said with a shake of his head sending his dreadlocks swinging. “Now I guess we gotta figure out where that power’s going.”

 

“That would help,” Agent Mei said as she delicately adjusted the thick frames of her glasses and peered at the image of the Kurnool District. “All that extra energy can raise the temperature in an urban area by a small but detectable amount, especially if there are temperature inversions to trap the heat over the city. It’s easier to see when the surrounding area is cool, though--it looks like you were all baking there!”

 

Hanzo nodded. “They are experiencing their first heatwave since the Crisis,” he explained, staring at the mass of red-and-white rooftops and streets outside the Inner Ring.

 

“Really?” asked Agent Mei with piqued interest. “Was it sudden, or have temperatures been higher throughout the year?”

 

He considered for a few moments, racking his memories of the newscasts and articles he had browsed during his off-time or while staking out As You Like It or some other front. “It was sudden,” he eventually replied, “and it was unusual. The temperature is fairly steady year-round, but it is supposed to cool down slightly as the monsoon winds down. This year the monsoon seemed to extend longer, and then the heatwave struck.”

 

“Interesting,” said Agent Mei with a shrewd look, “I’ll have to look into that.”

 

From there, however, the conversation devolved into a non-linear retelling of much of Hanzo’s mission, jumping around from the infiltration to the stakeouts to minutiae about the district and its people.

 

Despite his predilection towards secrecy, Hanzo felt himself relaxing somewhat as the conversation ebbed and flowed, especially when it became clear that Genji was keeping to the upper decks. Hanzo could hear the quiet murmur of his voice mingling with Agent Tracer and Winston’s far more boisterous ones. They, too, seemed to be intent on spending the entire flight in the cockpit--though, as their nearly uninterrupted conversation attested, they seemed to be good enough friends to easily fill the time.

 

The cowboy and the doctor climbed the stairs to join them, but they soon returned downstairs--and then upstairs, together and separately. A pattern of drifting between the cockpit and the rec table developed--Agent Torbjörn and, interestingly, Agent D.Va remained at the rec table, the engineer’s head bowed over his work as they conversed in low voices, and the cowboy especially seemed almost to be making rounds about the transport, spurs constantly approaching and retreating, always stopping at the conference table to listen in on Agents Mei and Lúcio questioning Hanzo about the infiltration and the mission at large, though he contributed nothing before drifting away to his next destination.

 

Hanzo caught Agent D.Va listening in as well, especially whenever they returned to the subject of the infiltration. Hanzo’s surveillance of Storm Bow, still exposed on the rec table, made it easy to see when she and Agent Torbjörn would stop talking so that she could hear what he saying, and when she subtly glanced at the holographic map as Agents Mei and Lúcio zoomed it in on various spots to match his narrative. It was harder to tell if the engineer was listening--he hardly ever looked up from his work except to set down a tool and pick up a new one, even as the hours passed by.

 

Agent Lúcio peppered the conversation with anecdotes from his hometown, comparing and contrasting the Kurnool District with Rio de Janeiro. Agent Mei very occasionally offered tidbits of similar information about her home in Xi’an, but it quickly became apparent to Hanzo that she was either content to allow Agent Lúcio to dominate that part of the conversation or hesitant to speak too much of it--she spoke slowly and quickly wrapped up everything she _did_ say about Xi’an, usually by asking Hanzo or Agent Lúcio about some point in a clear attempt to steer the conversation.

 

It seemed to Hanzo to be something other than an introverted or retiring nature--Agent Mei’s initial shyness, both on being introduced and after Hanzo’s confession, seemed to fade away almost to nothing after hardly any time at all, especially in the presence of someone as talkative as Agent Lúcio. She asked both him and Hanzo many questions and offered commentary with ease--it was only when they strayed close to topics of origin that she seemed to clam up.

 

The effect was subtle enough that Agent Lúcio did not seem to notice it the way Hanzo did--though he had help from Snowball, who seemed keyed in to even the smallest of Agent Mei’s gestures and expressions.

 

“--and then there’s _mate,”_ Agent Lúcio said after a short diatribe on Brazilian coffee culture. Hanzo had mentioned chai and apparently unearthed some kind of need to downplay tea in favor of supposedly superior drinks. “ _Mate_ will get you on your feet and keep you going like nothing else. _Way_ better than tea, that’s for sure.”

 

Agent Mei laughed. “Not the way my mother used to make it,” she said with a smile, though Hanzo caught the edges of it faltering ever so slightly before Snowball, the eyes on its diode display wide, brushed against her shoulder, which seemed to prompt her to continue, “She had a secret recipe that my father and grandparents insisted on taking with them to work because nothing else could keep them awake on the factory line like her tea could. I bet it would give _mate_ a run for its money!”

 

“Nope, nuh uh,” said Agent Lúcio playfully, all smiles. “Tell you what, when we finally get a mission back home, you’re gonna have some Mate Real that’ll have you flying back to base without a plane! Your mom’s tea’ll have nothing on it!”  

 

A swift, wistful look passed over her face before, with another gentle touch from Snowball, she hid it purposefully or incidentally under a bright, “I’ll look forward to trying it, along with some good caipirinha!”

 

“Of course! With a free round for this guy right here!” he crowed, with a slap on Hanzo’s back.

 

Hanzo caught an eyeroll from Agent D.Va at that, but she quickly went back to speaking with Agent Torbjörn.

 

But the talk about drinks made Hanzo aware of the strain on his throat--it had been a long, _long_ while since he last spoke so much, and soon the strain was calling out for tea, then water, then just about any beverage. There was always the sake hidden among Hanzo’s belongings, but he was certain it would be poor form to drink alcohol during the flight--that was something else to delay until he arrived in Hokkaido.

 

A better alternative would be something from the coffee machine--tea, preferably, no matter what Agent Lúcio said, since it was apparently available--but Hanzo held off on excusing himself to make himself a cup. Agent D.Va was sitting just off to the coffee machine’s side, and she had made it clear she wanted little to nothing to do with him--though he had a strong desire for much the same from her. His own feelings were the stronger rationale to wait and hope that she would return to the cockpit.

 

But she remained at the rec table, so when his voice began to sound scratchy and the urge to cough began to rise, he pushed both his and her concerns aside.

 

He discreetly bowed out of the conversation while Agent Lúcio was describing the severity and consequences of a persistent drought that had struck Brazil and only ended last year, a topic that had captured Agent Mei’s rapt attention in a similar manner the Kurnool District’s heatwave had. It was slightly strange to Hanzo that, given her apparent access to multiple climate and space agencies’ weather satellites, she would be out-of-touch with weather phenomena that had been fairly well-known. Brazil’s drought, and the social, political, and economic effects associated with it, had been worldwide news.

 

She _had_ mentioned being “reinstated”, but Hanzo would wait to see if that would be explained in her personnel file when the cowboy forwarded both hers and Agent Zenyatta’s to him.

 

He approached the coffee machine wearing a deliberately singleminded look, giving the briefest of nods to both Agent D.Va and Agent Torbjörn--the engineer most likely did not even see it, absorbed as he was in his work.

 

Agent. D.Va, on the other hand--

 

“So.”

 

Hanzo paused and looked down at her with an uplifted eyebrow. She met his look with a raised eyebrow of her own, and for a pair of seconds they did nothing but stare at each other.

 

It struck Hanzo how _young_ she looked, at least in her face. Her frame was obviously toned and strong under her jumpsuit--hardly expected of a professional gamer, but likely the product of the military training she must have gone through when she was drafted by the South Korean military. There was little military bearing in her posture, however. She was leaning back with arms crossed and jaw working on some chewing gum, nor was there much in her appearance with her long, brown hair tossed carelessly over one shoulder. Her face still bore traces of adolescence, her eyes large and expressive and her cheeks slightly puffy with teenage chubbiness around her indisputable button of a nose.

 

It was all tempered--counteracted, really--by her steely, no-nonsense gaze as she stared down the ex-yakuza standing above her with no evidence whatsoever of self-consciousness or reservation despite her small size and young age. Hanzo had to suppress a small snort--if Agent Soldier: 76 were to remove his mask, he would not be surprised to find an identical expression.

 

But _she_ snorted when he returned to his task of preparing the coffee machine after she said nothing more than that single word. He frowned slightly as he shuffled around the prepackaged coffee grounds and found no tea.

 

“ _So,_ ” she repeated, shifting slightly in place.

 

“So,” he replied in a flat tone, placing a clean mug under the dispenser. Coffee would have to do.

 

She rolled her eyes. “So, there was a lot more to the story than you let on.”

 

He glanced at her briefly but said nothing as he returned to watching the thick, black stream fill the mug.

 

Agent D.Va snorted again. “Or did Genji make it all up to get us to accept you?”

 

“Are you asking for confirmation?” he asked, keeping his voice low and even.

 

Before replying, she blew a slow bubble, popping it with a loud snap of her teeth. “It wouldn’t hurt,” she said with a shrug. “‘Specially since he says he has to guess about a lot of it.”

 

Hanzo could not help but raise an eyebrow at that, but he showed no other reaction as the stream of coffee ended and he picked up the mug. He stared at the too-hot liquid for a moment before he turned to Agent D.Va. “Ask your questions.”

 

The corner of her lip twitched, at what exactly he was not sure, but she launched into her questions with as little hesitance as she had shown before during his confession.

 

“You were born into your yakuza family?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You were always going to be the _boseuga_?”

 

“Pending the approval of the clan elders, but yes.”

 

She nodded slowly. “Yeah, about the clan elders--why did you have to listen to them after becoming the _boseuga_? Why weren’t you in charge?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. Why indeed? If his forebears, his great-grandfather specifically, had shown more restraint and wisdom, then his grandfather, mother, and Hanzo himself would have faced far fewer problems in protecting, managing, and ruling the clan. But Shimada Takashi’s love of sake and women had done much to dilute the power of the main line, and his son and granddaughter’s efforts to restore it had ultimately taken too much time--but they could hardly be blamed. They could not possibly have foreseen failure on Hanzo’s scale.

 

But how much or how little to explain the politics of the Shimada to an upstart nineteen-year-old gamer turned soldier? That was the current question.

 

“The clan elders were literally my elders,” he said quietly, “Mostly my great-aunts and uncles who had served the Shimada-gumi their entire lives, beginning in the days of my great-great-grandfather. They were owed deference for that alone, but in more practical terms they held much of the Shimada-gumi’s assets under their own names as rewards for their fealty and in order to make it harder for the authorities to trace our funding.” He hesitated, loathe to admit something so compromising, but he pushed on. “And they had been fostering loyalty to themselves rather than to the _kumichō_ for decades before I was born _._ They held great sway over our underlings, though they were constantly battling amongst themselves for prestige and influence.”

 

Hanzo became aware that the rest of the room had fallen silent apart from the tiny clicking and picking noises as Agent Torbjörn worked on the camouflage suit. It was apparent that Agents Mei and Lúcio were listening, though they remained on the other side of the room.

 

He maintained eye contact with Agent D.Va, not acknowledging his other listeners at all. She was nodding again with a hard, considering look.

 

“That must’ve fucking sucked.” He blinked in surprise, and she _smirked_ at the sight. “What? You saying it didn’t? It’s like _Neugdaeui Sogul_ times ten.”

 

Hanzo frowned, unimpressed at the comparison with the popular and gritty TV drama. It was highly unrealistic, with the typical watered-down characterizations to attempt to justify the protagonists’ actions and make them sympathetic to the audience. Hardly comparable to real life--but then again, Agent D.Va was not the first to consider fiction as analogous to reality.

 

“But they were the ones to order the hit on Genji?”

  
Hanzo’s grip on the mug tightened, though he had been expecting Agent D.Va’s questions to veer into that topic sooner rather than later given her brash and unapologetic nature.

 

“Yes,” he answered immediately.

 

Agent D.Va tilted her head. “And? There wasn’t anything you could do about it?”

 

Hanzo set his jaw even as his grip tightened still further, his knuckles white and protesting. He studied the young woman in front of him, immediately despairing of the half-formed notion that a one-word response with enough vehemence might suffice in satisfying or chastening her curiosity. That was how he had responded to Genji in the hovercar, and the results had been--poor.

 

He was willing to bet that such would go about as well with Agent D.Va. She seemed the kind of person who would take such an answer as a challenge, as Genji had. As Genji _always_ had, Hanzo realized with a flash of memory. Genji had never accepted curt, short answers with implications that he should know his place and follow directions. He almost shook his head ruefully--what a thing to forget in the decade since dealing with the antics of his wayward, arrogant, and headstrong sibling!

 

But at least now he would not make the same mistake with the person in front of him now.

 

“The elders disapproved of Genji for many years,” he said with an attempt at keeping his voice level.

 

For his entire life. Since before he was born, really, and it only became worse when he began lashing out against it.

 

“My grandfather and mother were able to deflect their disapproval, but I--”

 

He had been too foolish, too inexperienced, too _weak,_ but--

 

If Genji had not provoked them so--

 

If his father had not encouraged his rebellion and disrespect--

 

If his mother had not died so early and unexpectedly--

 

If Hanzo had not failed.

 

In the end, all the other factors were excuses when he had ultimately been the lynchpin to disaster. He had almost twenty-seven years to prepare to lead the Shimada, more time than other _kumichō_ in the past, but he failed regardless. If Hanzo had been more capable, more clever, more charismatic, more powerful, more popular, more quick-witted, more persuasive, more--

 

He could have managed everything as everyone before him had.

 

Instead, his failure cost everything.

 

And ultimately for nothing.

 

Someone coughed.

 

“Are ye done with yer interrogation yet?” Agent Torbjörn asked gruffly, looking up from his work at Agent D.Va. She opened her mouth, obviously ready with a retort, but he held up an admonishing finger. “Yer a soldier. You know as well as any of us that there’s territory where nobody with less than three letters after their name should venture.”

 

She gave him a flat, disbelieving look. “He’s _not_ a soldier.”

 

“No, he’s not. He comes from a darker world than warfare,” he said, his one blue eye sharp. “In his world, every ally is an enemy-in-waiting and a knife in the gut is as likely as a knife in the back.” He looked at Hanzo with a penetrating look before he turned back to Agent D.Va. “How much do you expect yer teammates to turn on you in MEKA? Have you ever even considered that? Would it even happen? Would Fl0w3r or Zunba ever turn their fusion cannons on _you?”_ He snorted. “Ridiculous question! Of course they wouldn’t--but _his_ might. His _did._ ”

 

“ _He_ did,” Agent D.Va blurted indignantly. “He betrayed his own brother!”

 

“He sure did,” the engineer replied in an even tone, “Under their family’s orders. Blood ordered blood to act against blood. That was the world he was in, the one he was born into, you understand? And, knowing that, consider: what if he hadn’t? What if he had defied them? You think either of them would still have their torsos?”

 

The feeling of a sword, born from memory, sliced across Hanzo’s chest, cutting through his astonishment at yet another unexpected defense.

 

“Doesn’t let him off the hook,” said Agent D.Va sullenly as she leaned forward and cupped her chin in her hands, her elbows on the table, both agents seemingly unaware of Hanzo’s silent yet sudden intake of breath.

 

“No, but you know who has, despite it all?” asked the engineer with a slight smile. The question was rhetorical, given Agent D.Va’s loud snort and rolled eyes, and Agent Torbjörn chuckled as he returned his attention to the camouflage suit. “Yer free to think what you like so long as you consider the facts, but keep in mind that there’s only one among us with a right to justice--and he’s set it aside. There isn’t much to be said in the face of that.”

 

“ _I_ can think of a few things,” Agent D.Va declared with a look at Hanzo.

 

“You? Mouse that you are?” said Agent Torbjörn with friendly sarcasm. She gave him a pinched smile in return and deliberately bumped the table with her knee, but he anticipated the move and clamped down on the table at nearly the same moment, dampening the worst of the vibration. He glanced up at Hanzo with a sardonic look. “Off with ye, before she traps you into another round of questioning.”

 

Hanzo bowed his head slightly, inordinately grateful for the dismissal, and silently retreated, trying to shake off the specter of failure as he went.

 

To his surprise, the cowboy had joined the duo by the conference table. He came forward as Hanzo approached, his spurs jingling, as they should have when he came down the stairs from the cockpit. Hanzo spared a suspicious glance at the cowboy’s boots--this was not the first time they should have given some kind of warning but had not.

 

“She givin’ you more trouble?” he asked quietly.

 

“No,” said Hanzo, meeting his eyes squarely. “She was merely asking for clarification.”

 

The cowboy worried at his bottom lip for a moment. “Y’know you don’ gotta say nothin’, right? It’s--it’s not like she has a right t’know everythin’.”

 

Hanzo looked down at his mug and swirled the coffee around slightly, watching puffs of steam stream off the surface in delicate curls. After Agent Torbjörn’s unexpected show of--not support, but--understanding? Comprehension?--the cowboy’s words were disproportionately grating. He was surrounded by people who apparently understood his situation yet somehow, inexplicably, only the nineteen-year-old gamer soldier was currently acting appropriately. Openly, at any rate.

 

Besides, he alone bore responsibility for her knowledge of events. He could not backtrack now. “After my--disclosure,” he said in a low voice, still staring into the blackness of his coffee, “It may be best to answer all questions to the best of my ability.”

 

“You don’ gotta answer nothin’,” repeated the cowboy with quiet vehemence. Hanzo looked back up to see fire burning in his eyes. “Look, when they plucked me outta Deadlock, everyone knew where I’d come from, and they felt free t’make all kinds of assumptions and try t’make it _my_ business to disprove ‘em, but it wasn’. So long as I did my job, it wasn’ any obligation of mine t’lay myself out naked as a jaybird for their benefit. And you--you _have_ been doin’ your job, and nobody’s got any right to ask any more of you.”

 

Hanzo only barely refrained from scoffing, rolling his eyes, or any number of things that would reveal the wave of skepticism crashing through him.

 

“Not--not everyone will respect or appreciate your work.” The fire died, replaced by a shadow of self-consciousness draping over the cowboy’s furrowed brow as he broke eye contact, looking off to one side. “Me, for example, when you started. Some people never will, but--you’ll win most of ‘em over, given time. You don’ gotta run yourself ragged ‘til they do, though.”

 

“That is not what I am here for, Agent McCree,” said Hanzo tonelessly. “It would be a futile endeavor even if it were not beside the point. I am here--” He faltered with a swift glance at the two agents still standing by the conference table. They both started and belatedly looked away.

 

The cowboy bit his bottom lip.

 

“It’s not what you’re here for, but--it’s good advice anyway, ain’ it?”

 

Hanzo could not help but stare.

 

The cowboy gave a long sigh as he took his hat off and ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, just keep it in mind, if nothin’ else.” He put his hat back on and jerked his head towards the conference table. “C’mon, we’re about an hour out from Iwaki, but there’s a problem.”

 

Hanzo trailed behind the cowboy, his eyebrows knitted together, from both the mention of the problem and the cowboy himself. He had offered his opinion before, but to offer some “good advice” was something new.

 

Both Agent Mei and Agent Lúcio had awkward smiles plastered on their faces when the cowboy and Hanzo joined them. Hanzo returned them with a nod and sipped at his coffee to hide his own lack of a cursory smile--the slight burn to his lips and tongue was preferable.

 

The floating holographic globe had reappeared with the Orca’s position marked just off the eastern Korean coast, but the outlines of the continents were mostly hidden under a layer of clouds trailing the mountain ranges and swirling over the oceans.

 

Hanzo immediately spotted two swirls that could definitely become a “problem”.

 

They stared out of the globe like two misshapen, misaligned eyes over the western Pacific between Taiwan and Japan. If the map was current, then one was currently approaching the coast of Kyushu while the other was pounding the Ryukyu Islands.

 

Agent Mei gestured at the globe, her awkward smile morphing into a concerned frown. “Typhoon Megi and Typhoon Chaba,” she said in a grim tone, pointing at the northerly and southerly storm in turn. “Luckily, the JMA says they’re both at the lower end of the scale, but they’re still typhoons--and they’re both projected to hit Hokkaido head-on.” The paths of the storms appeared, two red lines strung with dots at irregular intervals, both sharing nearly identical routes crossing over Kyushu and southern Honshu into the Sea of Japan before arcing directly over Hokkaido and out into the northern Pacific. “Hokkaido will be experiencing winds of at least 80 KPH for two to four days, with winds peaking above 120-- _twice_.”  

 

Hanzo nodded slowly. It was a fairly typical occurrence, really--typhoons north of Taiwan would head west before forming a C-shaped path by veering north and east. They often seemed set on tracing the length of Kyushu and Honshu before drifting off to sea, but some would cross into the Sea of Japan to gather strength before striking at Hokkaido. Hanzo’s yearly schedule meant that he had never had to deal with a typhoon there--the season was always over by the time he headed north--but one of the first things he inevitably had to do when he arrived was deal with the aftermath of at least one strong storm.

 

But while he would now be experiencing _two_ Hokkaido typhoons firsthand, it was not the most daunting task by any stretch of the imagination.

 

However, there were very few emergency services on the island since the Crisis, and none at all where he was going, which, judging by the looks on all three faces before him, was no secret.

 

“You gonna be okay?” asked the cowboy with no preamble. He nodded at the storms’ paths. “Those dots are six hour intervals, so Megi’s gonna arrive in Hokkaido in less than 36 hours. How long will it take you to get under cover?”

 

“Much less than that,” answered Hanzo immediately. “The ferry takes only thirteen hours.”

 

The cowboy gave him a shrewd look, but it was Agent Lúcio who asked the question. “What about once you’re in Hokkaido? Where are you gonna go when you’re there?” he asked. Agent Mei nodded vigorously beside him.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. In truth, he had not completely decided--his custom upon arriving in Hokkaido was to stop at one of half a dozen stashes scattered about southeastern Hokkaido--they were too small to be termed “caches”. The stashes were closer to the tiny towns on the coast, enabling him to more easily purchase supplies to help shore him up when the snows made the vast, mountainous, and abandoned interior of the island unreachable. He replenished what he could before he went south again in the spring, but there was only so much he could do between the snows melting and his annual May pilgrimage.

 

But the situation was quite complex now--it was an open question whether he would be wintering in Hokkaido at all. What would Overwatch require once he had laid low long enough? Would Winston fall back on his previous strategy and merely wait for the six months to expire? Or would he choose to employ the tool at his disposal now that it had proven its worth? Hanzo could easily imagine him choosing the latter under Genji’s influence--though, given the cowboy’s perplexing behavior as of late, he might push for Hanzo’s skills to be used as well--as might Agent Lúcio, he realized, given his overwhelmingly positive reception of the infiltration.

 

The point was, if he was expecting to leave again soon enough, he might have made do with a stash until he was called into service again.

 

But now that the typhoons were a factor--

 

None of his his stashes were particularly secure or durable. They were barely any better than campsites; certainly not the places he would choose to endure a severe storm. The caches, on the other hand--

 

He had never gone directly to his caches. Another function of the stashes were to help determine if anyone with undue interest was following him. In the tiny communities of Ainu-Mosir, all was laid open to eyes far less discerning and paranoid than Hanzo’s.

 

Well. The stashes might not be much, but one of them was in a house. It was also the most remote of all his stashes, making security less of an issue, though few assassins, Vishkar-sponsored or not, would attempt much in the middle of a tropical cyclone.

 

And Hanzo would have time to think about whether he would go to one of his caches at all.

 

“Obihiro,” he said at last. “A city near the center of Hokkaido. There is a farmhouse in the outskirts that I have used many times in the past.” Agent Lúcio’s unimpressed, skeptical expression prompted him to add, “It has endured all the storms that have come before, and will again.”

 

Agent Lúcio looked somewhat mollified, but the shrewd look on the cowboy did not abate. “What about transportation, food, water, bedding?” he asked, counting off on his metal fingers. “What about your stuff?”

 

Hanzo forced down a wave of irrational irritation. The cowboy did not know how often he went to Hokkaido, nor should he--Hanzo should be pleased that he knew so little.

 

He really should not assume Hanzo would be so unprepared, though.

 

“Everything I require will be on hand,” he said quietly, in a tone he hoped discouraged further questions.

 

For a moment it seemed like all three agents were vacillating on the edge of speech--the cowboy especially looked torn, but in the end, all he did was nod and say, “Alright, Agent Shimada. Glad you got everything under control.” Agents Mei and Lúcio looked at each other, both plainly dissatisfied, but neither challenged Hanzo or the cowboy. Once that was clear, the cowboy smiled humorlessly and turned towards the globe.

 

With a few hand gestures he zoomed in and focused on Japan, the northern tips of Honshu filling most of the view with the butterfly-shaped Mutsu Bay front and center. A red marker blinked off to the southwest of the bay, on the other side of the Tsugaru Peninsula. Hanzo immediately saw to his slight displeasure that he would have to cross the entirety of the Tsugaru Plains in addition to the mountain range that cut off Aomori from the rest of Honshu. However, since he was arriving via the troop carrier of an illegal paramilitary organization, he could not fault Athena for choosing to land on the far side of Mount Iwaki. By the look of the satellite images, no one but the inhabitants of a single tiny community might see.

 

He glanced out the hatch window--the sprawling vista of clouds with patches of glittering ocean far below was tinged with pink and red. Sunset was approaching, so within another hour it would be dark. A perfect clandestine landing site indeed, though the marker was situated worryingly high on the volcanic slopes of Iwaki-yama.

 

“Athena’s got us landing on the side of this ridge here,” explained the cowboy, switching the satellite images into a 3D topographical map of the volcano that settled a few centimeters above the surface of the table. “It’s close t’the trailhead for the ascent to the peak, where some hotels and inns recently got re-established. The idea she hit on was for you to get transportation in their vicinity t’offset your luggage.” Hanzo raised an eyebrow slightly and nodded as a blue icon popped up in the foothills, closer than he was expecting to the landing site. “They got buses, taxis, and a waypoint for car rentals, but given the time crunch I’d say the car’ll be best--Athena can make the arrangements. She’s just waitin’ on your word.”

 

“That would be very helpful,” Hanzo said, pulling his comm out of his pocket. A car would make the journey in an hour, perhaps less, plus he would be able to wander Aomori in it until the ferry was about to leave rather than sit exposed and vulnerable in the ferry terminal with all his possessions.

 

He pulled up the chat window with Athena, pointedly ignored her last message, and began to type with one thumb while sipping at his coffee, but the AI was far too quick.

 

 

 

 

 

> >Athena
> 
> Agent Shimada, here are the details of
> 
> your trip: a sedan will be waiting at the
> 
> Tokiwano Waypoint at 1715 JST,
> 
> approximately 1,102 metres from the
> 
> landing site, authorization code 84121.
> 
> I have the ticketing office for the
> 
> Aomori-Ni Mu Oro ferry line on stand
> 
> The most convenient departure is at
> 
> 1850\. I can make arrangements for
> 
> that as well.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips, but he had to admit that if Vishkar had identified him, then it was likely to be much safer for Athena to handle as many transactions as possible rather than to rely on his own spread of funds--unless they had intercepted the transmissions from his comm, there was little that could connect him to Overwatch.

 

 

 

 

 

> >From: Agent Shimada
> 
> Thank you. I will disembark at Hirō.
> 
> Please let me know the cost.

 

 

 

 

 

> >Athena
> 
> Not at all, Agent Shimada. Here is
> 
> your ticket:
> 
> Attached: Ticket034.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

> >Athena
> 
> However, Overwatch business is not
> 
> the financial responsibility of agents.
> 
> All expenses will be taken from the
> 
> Mission: Boa Vista budget. Your
> 
> incidental costs during the mission,
> 
> on the other hand, are eligible for
> 
> reimbursement. Please submit them
> 
> and the funds will be included in your
> 
> next paycheck.

 

Hanzo held back a scoff. He barely gave a second thought to his wages--they were being deposited in a throwaway offshore account that Hanzo had never used and never planned to use.

 

Although--now that he knew Genji was alive, it might be prudent to designate him as--

 

Well. That was something else he could do during the free time he would shortly have far too much of.

 

For now, though, there were preparations to make. “Athena has made all the arrangements. If that is all, I have a few things I must do before landing,” he said to the cowboy.

 

He shrugged. “Nothin’ I can think of, unless there’s somethin’ else we can help out with, t’make things go smoother?”

 

“No, nothing.” He nodded at the other two agents before going to the rec table.

 

Agent D.Va watched him approach. “Back for another interrogation?”

 

Hanzo heard a slight intake of breath behind him--it could have been any of the three agents behind him--before he said, “If you wish, but I have matters to attend to before we land.”

 

“Eh, I was kidding,” she said, glancing past him with a small smile as she stretched her arms out above her. “But two typhoons, huh? Maybe we should turn around--” Hanzo’s stomach dropped, and he opened his mouth, but she surprised him. “--and land in Busan to wait them out. We could all hang out at my parents’. They’d be thrilled to meet an ex-yakuza.”

 

There was a beat of silence while Hanzo tried to weigh how serious or not she was being.

 

“You just want some of that--oh, whatever the hell it’s called, Samuel-sal,” grumbled Agent Torbjörn.

 

Agent D.Va shrugged. “If you tried it, you’d understand the cravings. I bet you yearn for some good _lutefisk._ ”

 

“ _Lutfisk,_ ” he corrected with the heavy air of suffering. “ _Lutfisk._ And the only thing I yearn for when yer around is silence.” Agent D.Va stuck out her tongue before she grinned, not the least bit insulted. “Anyway, if yer here for yer bow,” he said to Hanzo, “take it. You’ll be devastated to know you won’t be getting this suit back before we land, but you will get it back--eventually. You’d have gotten it sooner if you hadn’t made us ferry ye to the other side of the world.”

 

“I--apologize,” said Hanzo as he picked up Storm Bow and inspected it, though he was not in the least bit apologetic.

 

“No you don’t,” said the engineer, but before Hanzo could do anything but bristle slightly, he added “but I wouldn’t either, given the circumstances and the company.” He gave equally meaningful glances at both Agent D.Va and towards the cockpit.

 

Hanzo did not answer. He merely bowed his head in thanks for the return of Storm Bow and retreated to the shelving holding his luggage.

 

He carefully put it away in the cello case before withdrawing the bottle of--pain pills or nanites, whatever the correct term was--from his pocket. He weighed it in his palm while shifting his weight from one leg to the other--it had been almost five straight hours completely free of phantom pain. The pills certainly seemed effective, though at the moment he still felt a strong aversion to even consider using them.

 

The matter may look different as he lay in the darkness with pain shooting through him out of empty air, though. The doctor had a valid point when she said it was unreasonable to refuse treatment for something that evidently had a fairly simple if scarce solution--plus, if Genji found he had taken them but not used them--

 

He sighed and pushed the bottle into a random pocket inside the case.

 

His fingernails clicked against brass, startling him slightly--he had forgotten about the Omnic nun’s orb.

 

He pulled it slightly out from its pouch, studying the markings for a moment. Despite the weeks since Byans, the white light still slowly pulsed in the circular markings on its surface, keeping to an unknown beat. He grimaced at it. Given his failures and Genji’s lecture and reaction to his legs, it was more apparent than ever the orb was misplaced, though he was still at a loss of what to do with it besides keep it hidden away. Genji or whoever went through his belongings would find it after--

 

Assuming “after” ever--

 

He shoved it back out of sight and gathered his toiletries bag and a change of clothes before heading for the tiny bathrooms at the top of the aft stairs. There were no private rooms on the ferry, so it was important to both preserve appearances and avoid offending the other passengers with body odor.

 

The bathroom was tiny enough that Hanzo was forced to leave the change of clothes on the floor just outside the door to avoid dripping water on them, and his limbs bumped against the walls and door with embarrassing volume a few times, but he managed to give himself a fairly thorough cleaning. He wished the sink in particular was bigger so as to wash his hair--he had had no opportunity to rinse out either the tea tree oil for As You Like It or the sweat from the bunker, and he could definitely feel the unclean weight as he released his ponytail and brushed it out.

 

But he paused when he caught a look of himself in the small mirror.

 

He ran his fingers through the still mercifully jetblack hair, the contrast between it and the grey fanning out from his sideburns and temples stronger when it was loose and framing his head. Somehow--somehow, between the hazy months after May and the vexing time under the cowboy’s unforgiving eye and then the distraction of the Kurnool District, the gradual growth had escaped his notice. For ten years his hair had never made it past a short bob that gathered around the frame of his jaw. That was all it had time to do in the year between Mays.

 

Now--

 

He still did not know why he had foregone that last step in the ritual. Somehow in the daze of those few minutes, when Genji’s words were ringing in his mind and he had stiffly, robotically returned to the shrine and knelt amidst the curling smoke of the incense before the feather and the sword and the mural high above, it did not seem right to approach and grasp the hilt and perform that last rite of mourning and exile and leave the roughly cut shock of hair as evidence both of his sin and defiance.

 

Now it was long, longer than it had been in ten years, brushing against his shoulders and tickling along the base of his neck.

 

He shook himself, physically, hard. What of it? Genji was not dead, so it was inappropriate to mourn his death. It was as simple as that.

 

He gathered his hair back into its usual ponytail, despite the fact that he would have to let it down again when he redressed. To get his mind off its disproportionately disturbing symbolism, if any, he began to twist and turn to examine himself, grimacing at what he could see in the mirror’s minuscule field of view. On closer inspection of his thinner face and diminished physique, it was easier to see why Winston had been concerned after seeing him for the first time in months.

 

It increased the temptation to return to his caches sooner rather than later. It was only October, so if he went back now he would have less body mass to recover--but Hanzo had not slept in a long while. He could wait to consider that question when he was better able to reason effectively.

 

Still, despite the muscle he had lost while slightly underfed and greatly overstressed, he was pleased that he still cut an imposing enough figure. A small testament to his discipline despite the challenges he faced, even if it had been sorely taxed and failed more than once these past few months.

 

He had barely inched open the door to check for passers-by and gathered his new clothes, a dark blue longsleeved polo shirt with loose slacks that were a deeper blue still, when the transport began to bank slightly and Agent Tracer’s voice rang out over the PA.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and gentlegorilla, we will be arriving in Aomori Prefecture in about twenty minutes! Please secure your belongings and prepare for landing!”

 

Hanzo grimaced at the slight off-kilter movement of the Orca. It reminded him that he had the notoriously rough seas surrounding Hokkaido to look forward to.

 

He dressed quickly and returned down the stairs to put his things away. Agent Torbjörn was placing his tools into three toolcases that looked meticulously organized, though not to any pattern Hanzo knew. He growled loudly as the Orca banked again, sending several of them wobbling and sliding slightly on the surface of the rec table. “No warning until the approach, of course,” he grumbled as he grabbed at them with his one flesh hand.

 

Agent D.Va giggled as she began to corral the errant tools with her arms, sweeping them into a pile between them. “Here, here, I got them. None of them are getting away that easy!”

 

“Thank ye, thank ye,” he said as he quickly plucked tool after tool out of the pile. “Good to know that one of you children knows how to be useful around here.”

 

“A what now?” asked Agent D.Va, shifting and “accidentally” letting one tool fall off the edge of the table and out of sight.

 

“An impertinent, immature, vengeful, and malicious _young lady,_ ” spat the engineer, waving his giant claw threateningly at her. “Now pick that up!”

 

“Relax, _hal-abeoji,_ it’s in my lap!”

 

“ _Abeoji_ , young lady. I don’t have any grandkids yet.”

 

“Hey, you’re learning! It’s a miracle,” she sang out with a grin.

 

“Disrespect will get you nowhere,” he replied, narrowing his eye.

 

“If you can’t handle it, get out of the game, old man.”

 

“I tried,” he griped, closing one of the toolcases with a loud snap, “but the game keeps pulling me back in.”

 

A small chattering crowd came down the stairs, everyone but Agent Soldier: 76, Agent Tracer and Genji. Winston brought up the rear, carrying several small foil and plastic bags splattered with hangul in one huge hand, but he made straight for Hanzo as soon as he saw him. “Agent Shimada,” he said in a low voice. “Are you really going to be okay with two typhoons?”

 

Hanzo sighed internally as he nodded. “Japanese construction is hardy, particularly in Hokkaido where the winters are severe. I will be fine.”

 

Winston had a small scowl. “You say that, but I still don’t like it much. Would you--” he said with the air of trying to avoid upsetting Hanzo, “--I mean, obviously we were going to be checking in with you regardless, but it would help me not worry as much if you took the security subsystem with you.”

 

Hanzo’s eyebrows shot up before he could control them, the surprise was so great. Despite Winston’s assurances, Hanzo was _still_ a possible Talon agent. “But I am not--” he blurted before he stopped himself as Genji came down the stairs, arms full of more Korean snacks. He passed by them with a small nod as he headed for Agent D.Va. Hanzo took a deep, centering breath before he tried again. “I do not believe the subsystem will be of much use during a typhoon.”

 

“You’d be surprised what Athena can do with the spyders,” said Winston with an oddly proud air. “For one, they can inspect your shelter for weak points and help patch them up before the storm starts ripping them open, and they’re tough enough to maintain a perimeter even in strong winds--they can’t patrol as easily, but they find little nooks and crannies to keep watch from, and you and Athena might find lots of other things for them to do. I realize it’s more weight to cart around, but really, it would mean a lot to me and G--I m-mean,” he stammered, eyes going wide.

 

It was all Hanzo needed to hear.

 

“Thank you for the generous offer. I will be happy to have that advantage,” said Hanzo lightly with a slight smile. He had been readying his other key point, that of power, but if this had been Genji’s idea or had his support, Hanzo would have to adapt accordingly.

 

Still, the power would be a problem. “However, I may not have access to electricity,” he said calmly, watching as embarrassment and self-conscious anger momentarily warred across Winston’s face before he settled into resignation. “I will need at least one more battery to power it until the skies clear enough for it to charge.”

 

“Of course. We have some in the cargo hold,” said Winston, trying and failing to match Hanzo’s tone.

 

Hanzo thanked him and spared the gorilla any more acute embarrassment by going to sit in the jumpseat. He looked at the shelving holding his luggage as he sat, rather mournfully thinking over the extra clumsy weight he would have to carry, but it could not be helped.

 

Soon he was distracted from that particular problem when Genji and the cowboy came to sit. Genji had apparently left Agent D.Va to worry about putting away the large pile of snacks, which she was trying to shove into some of the small drawers alongside the coffee machine, swearing furiously in her native tongue at the various crunching noises. He sat and tugged down the restraint without a word or a look at Hanzo. The cowboy, on the other hand--

 

“So,” he said conversationally, “Couldn’ help but overhear. Glad you’ll have the subsystem with you t’help out.”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo agreeably, leaning back in the jumpseat and staring up at the ceiling far above. “It will be quite the comfort.”

 

“Well, maybe not while you’re carrying it around, but once you settle in someplace having some more eyes will feel good,” said the cowboy encouragingly. “Can almost be like having pets around that’ll raise a ruckus if anyone comes by.”

 

Hanzo almost snorted. If he were to return to his southern cache, the one without the 3D printer, he would not need the spyders for companionship. He almost smiled, _really_ smiled at the thought of the colony’s reaction to the spyders--they would most likely scatter immediately, and only the bravest members would dare return to inspect the strange metallic creatures.

 

But he lost his train of thought to the transport’s sudden drop and accompanying banking motion. He set his jaw and pressed his lips into a flatline. Whether by coincidence or in response to his expression, the cowboy got his comm out and starting browsing it. Hanzo first watched Agents Torbjörn and Mei and Dr. Ziegler get to their seats while the rest disappearing upstairs again before he got out his own comm as a distraction from the random movements of the transport.

 

Soon, however, sooner than he expected, the transport leveled out, though while it still shuddered from time to time as it descended to the chosen landing site. It was an enormous relief when one last tremor ran through the deck plating and Agent Tracer’s voice boomed, “We have arrived on the slopes of beautiful Mount Iwaki in Aomori Prefecture! The time is 1653, and the temperature is 4°C! The forecast calls for--well, we all know the forecast, don’t we? Haaa.” The last word was a strange mixture of a true attempt at a laugh, self-consciousness, and dejection.

 

Genji grunted at Hanzo’s side as he released his restraint. “You just need the battery?” Hanzo nodded. If the cowboy had overheard, then it stood to reason that Genji, too, had been listening in. “I got it. I’ll help you take your things down, too.”

 

“Yeah, me, too!” Agent Lúcio appeared to have literally jumped down the stairs, absorbing the fall with a bend of the knees and sweeping up to stretch his arms out above his head, exposing a sliver of his taut stomach as his shirt rode up with the motion. “I’ve forgotten what the outside looks like, we’ve been in here so long. Do they still have things like the stars and the Moon? I gotta know!”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips and glanced at the cowboy--surely he would agree that so many people leaving the transport was a bad idea--

 

“Well,” said the cowboy, frowning. “Athena and Lena didn’ see anyone on the way in, but still--I was hopin’ t’go with him, too, but four people comin’ down the mountain after dark only for three of ‘em t’go back--”

 

“Three’s only one more than two, y’know,” said Agent Lúcio, a little petulantly with a hint of a pout on his lips.

 

The cowboy laughed. “Oh, there’s them puppy eyes! How can I say no t’such a sad sight?” Agent Lúcio was in the middle of breaking into a grin when the cowboy shuttered his face in a snap. “Easy as pie, actually. Sorry, Luz, you can do some laps around the Orca, but I think it should just be the three of us goin’ down, if you please.”

 

“Cold. That was cold, man.”

 

“I know, I’m awful,” said the cowboy with a lopsided not-quite-smile as he stood. “Here, Agent Shimada, I’ll grab the subsystem if you wanna grab the rest. Good thing it had enough time to charge, huh?” Hanzo did not answer as he complied. As far as he was concerned, he did not need anyone to accompany him at all, but he could make vague guesses at why Genji and the cowboy would wish to escort him, though almost all of them were rendered improbable by the other’s presence.

 

Genji returned shortly down the forward stairs from wherever he had gone to access the cargo bay. The hatch hissed as it opened and folded into the ramp, and everyone on board took that as the cue to gather at its side in a loose farewell party--even Agent Soldier: 76 appeared out of his hiding spot. Hanzo fought to hide his dismay to have so much attention focused on him and managed to do so tolerably as he packed away the large spare battery for the subsystem in his suitcase and hefted his cello case on his back. Genji grabbed at the suitcase handle when Hanzo clicked it closed and set it upright. He thinned his lips at the gesture but made no comment.

 

Winston shuffled forward as Hanzo stood to his full height, offering a handshake. “Be careful out there, Agent Shimada,” he said seriously as his hand engulfed Hanzo’s. “If anything looks the least bit off or if you need any assistance whatsoever, you know you can count on us.”

 

Hanzo nodded, feeling the rather intense gaze of Agent D.Va at those words, but it struck him with almost physical force that nearly everyone else seemed markedly--friendlier.  

 

Even Dr. Ziegler. She was the first after Winston to come forward and offer her hand. “Good luck, Agent,” she said formally as Hanzo shook it after a brief moment of hesitation. She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “Let me know of any side-effects.”

 

“There are none so far, doctor. Thank you,” he replied just as quietly. She nodded with a slight smile and moved away, to be replaced by both Agents Lúcio and Mei. Agent Lúcio immediately clapped him on the shoulder.

 

“Last chance to just come back with us, man,” he said with an uncharacteristically solemn expression. “I know you don’t want to, but it’s not too late to change your mind.”

 

Hanzo shook his head slightly even as he inwardly reeled from the offer--though he might have expected Agent Lúcio to be so frank, it was still a shock that he held any concern at all. “Thank you, but I must decline.”

 

“Nah, you don’t gotta,” said Agent Lúcio with a roll of his eyes, “but if you wanna, not much I can do. Keep in touch, man. Really.”

 

“Yes, especially during the typhoons,” said Agent Mei. She hesitated, then said in a small, timid voice, “I’m sorry I didn’t find out about them sooner. I should’ve checked as soon as you decided to go, but I was distracted by everything we were doing. S-sorry!” she finished with a small apologetic bow.

 

Hanzo immediately bowed back, flabbergasted but trying not to show it. “Not at all, Agent Mei, it is no fault of yours. I would have returned no matter the weather.”

 

“Still,” she insisted, “I’m the only climatologist Overwatch has got now, so I should keep a closer eye on anything that might threaten agents. I’ll do better from now on.”

 

Hanzo nodded, at a loss of what else to do or say. She gave a tremulous smile. “Well, anyway. Good luck! I’ll let you know if the forecast changes at all.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

The rest of the group murmured variations of “goodbye” and “good luck”, with an impertinent “Don’t get found and killed!” from Agent D.Va with an overly sweet smile though it was echoed by Agent Soldier: 76 in a far more serious tone.

 

“Yeah, try not to get yourself killed out there,” he said soberly, just as he before Mission: Boa Vista.

 

Hanzo only nodded to him before he walked out the hatch and down the ramp with Genji and the cowboy on either side. The cold bit into his cheeks and hands as he passed through the forcefield, a welcome sensation after both the heat of the Kurnool District and the sweating induced by his--episode.

 

The Orca stood in a small clearing that was barely big enough to contain it, the light spilling from its windows and hatch gently illuminating the naked branches of the thickly packed trees all around, the ground matted with piles of fallen canopy. A break in the treeline marked a narrow trail that looked to snake around the toe of the ridge that rose above them. It merged into the flank of the volcano, the peak shimmering blue-white high above under a cap of snow. Higher still, white and red stars were shining between a few scattered clouds--hardly any were blotted out by the faint off-white cityglow bleeding around the volcano’s outline from the scattered settlements of the Tsugaru Plains concealed behind.

 

It was a breathtaking sight, though Hanzo was hardly in a frame of mind to appreciate it.

 

“Beautiful,” whispered Genji, as if he feared to be overheard.

 

Hanzo started and glanced at him briefly with a quizzical look. It was strange to hear him express admiration for a landscape, but he regretted the look; the green glow of Genji’s running lights hit him with a sharp pang before he reined himself in and looked straight ahead at the trail.

 

Genji chuckled softly. “Surprised, brother?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips, frustrated to have his reaction found out. “I--” he began uncertainly.

 

“I know, I know, after all those hikes and that camping trip I ruined with my bellyaching, it must be shocking to hear me say something nice about a boring old mountain,” said Genji knowingly as they entered the trail. Genji confidently moved into the lead, leaving Hanzo to follow with the cowboy behind. “But you’ll be happy to hear I’ve developed an appreciation for nature. You saw how beautiful it is in Byans, no?”

 

Hanzo had to swallow a lump that arose out of many different places in his throat before he could reply. “Yes,” he said simply, then, remembering the business about one-word answers, he exerted himself to speak. “The view there has no equal.”

 

“No, it doesn’t,” agreed Genji. The trail began to twist around the edge of the ridge, and the running lights peppering Genji’s carapace suddenly dimmed. Hanzo instinctually blinked rapidly, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the sudden loss of light--he had been depending on them more than he realized, a perverse thought that had him frowning. Still, the cityglow and the weak light filtering through the trees from the unseen moon were enough for him to follow the well-maintained trail, particularly with Genji leading the way.

 

“I--” began Genji after a few moments of silence, though he seemed to switch what he was going to say in mid-sentence, “--you’d like it during sunset, especially from higher up, by the monastery. The valleys below fill with shadow while the snow on the mountaintops all around catches the last of the sunlight. Exactly the kind of view you always liked.”

 

Hanzo set his jaw for a moment, breathing deep through his nose. It _was_ the sort of view he had sought during the infrequent trips into the countryside he used to treasure, out where the air was clear and free and the tableau of creation stretched uninterrupted out to the horizon. It had been a long time since he had deliberately gone in search of such, though--instead he contented himself with whatever incidental vistas had passed before his eyes, though he would turn away before too long. Beauty was wasted on him, after all.

 

They walked on--Hanzo tried at first to find an adequate reply, but Genji was apparently satisfied with the quiet since he himself did not choose to break it.

 

Hanzo realized with a small burst of annoyance that the cowboy was following close behind-- _silently._ He had not thought to check if he still wore the boots with those inconsistent spurs of his, but he certainly would if they got to a spot with sufficient light.

 

After about fifteen or twenty minutes, pinpricks of light began to twinkle through the forest itself, obviously artificial. They were approaching civilization.

 

Genji slowed, stopped, and placed Hanzo’s suitcase on the ground before he turned around. Hanzo had enough warning to be be able to look just slightly above the dull, unlit green V of his visor, but Genji seemed to be looked past him. “Alright, McCree, you first.”

 

With an automatic stiffening of his spine, Hanzo turned halfway. The cowboy was just finishing a curt nod at Genji before he focused on Hanzo. “So, uh--” he began, then he seemed to gather himself. “Someone should go with you, at least as far as, uh, what’s it called again? Hirō?”

 

“Hirō, yes.” Hanzo had tried to steel his face into something neutral, but the cowboy grimaced at whatever he saw in it. “Look, uh--it’s just that you haven’ slept in a while, and there’s no car t’carry you around this time, and it’d be smart for you t’have someone t’watch your back so can you sleep on the ferry, since it’ll be so long.”

 

Hanzo tried not to purse his lips, but it was difficult. There was a stark difference between the ferry and the Overwatch transport: anyone who attacked him on the ferry in his sleep could be overpowered and dumped overboard with minimal fuss. If someone were to attack him on the Overwatch transport, Hanzo’s dialed up nerves could not be trusted to know the difference in the split second between waking and full awareness, so it was prudent to stay awake. With no need for such a filter on the ferry, Hanzo would be able to--not sleep, exactly, but rest and possibly doze. If the cowboy or--or Genji were there--

 

But how to explain that distinction? By not trying to at all.

 

“I will be able to monitor and gauge the crew and passengers for threats quite easily,” he said, looking the cowboy straight in the eye. “I will be in public spaces at all times where it is difficult to hide or even act strangely without being noticed. I have felt secure enough to rest there before. There is no need for anyone to accompany me.”

 

The cowboy bit his lip for a moment. He searched Hanzo’s face, his eyes almost black in the low light. “It’s not like you’d have a cowboy with you,” he said. “I’d leave the hat and the spurs behind.”

 

The ends of Hanzo’s lips quirked. He had been so focused on avoiding the uncomfortable truth that he had not even considered the picture of the cowboy setting his cowboy boots and hat alongside the thin futons provided in the common sleeping area. No, if the cowboy were to come along as a cowboy, he would certainly do more harm than good, but Hanzo would hardly expect a former black ops agent to make such a mistake. “Of course,” he said with a slight nod, “My apologies, I did not mean to imply that you would mosey onboard in full getup.” The cowboy’s lips also quirked a little. “I only meant that potential assassins or Vishkar agents would be easy to spot while their options are simultaneously limited.”

 

The cowboy held his gaze for a few more moments before he sighed in defeat. “If you say so, Agent Shimada.” He lifted the subsystem and patted it with thunking noises from his metal hand. “The subsystem will be on standby, and Athena can be pretty damned annoying with spyders if a situation develops. Keep that in mind; might help you sleep a little better.” Hanzo narrowed his eyes at the reassurance but he nodded. The cowboy looked over his shoulder. “Alright, your turn.”

 

Genji was silent for a moment before he cleared his throat, the reverb lending it a rather alien sound. “I would like to rendezvous with you every two weeks,” he said. “In person.”

 

Hanzo clenched his jaw.

 

“It used to be Blackwatch protocol that no agent go more than fourteen days without physically checking in,” continued Genji, his voice tight and monotone as though he was reciting from a memorized script, “And given that there is now a real possibility of pursuit--” he faltered for a moment, his helmet swiveling as though he was glancing at the cowboy before the dull green was back on Hanzo again, “--McCree’s usually pretty busy when he’s on Watchpoint, so I’ve volunteered to execute the protocol,” he said more naturally, though nervously.

 

Hanzo wrenched his teeth apart. “I understand.” He thought for a moment. “I assume the first check in will be November 6th?”

 

Genji nodded. “Yeah, exactly. We can set up a rendezvous point later when we get closer, though, since we’ll be in contact.”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo distractedly. He thought over the likely weather for this first check-in. The snow usually arrived fairly early in Hokkaido, especially in the cooler aftermath of the Crisis, but as the climate recovered from the nuclear winter the first snowfall in the lowlands had been getting pushed back. The first week of November would probably pose little problem as far as transportation was concerned--but the weeks following--

 

Well. He must make it work. Somehow.

 

“Very well,” he said resolutely. “Is there anything else I must know?”

 

Genji shook his head, the moonlight glinting off the strange horns on either side. “No, that should be everything. McCree?”

 

The cowboy shrugged. “Nothin’ more on my end. We’ll let you know if anythin’ important happens.”

 

Hanzo nodded and accepted first the subsystem from the cowboy and then his suitcase from Genji, trying not to flinch as his strangely warm metallic fingers brushed against Hanzo’s. The cowboy tipped his hat, which was still _such_ an odd gesture to Hanzo, though he bore it better this time. Genji, on the other hand, seemed almost to want to clap a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder as Agent Lúcio had done, but he stopped himself and murmured a small, “Farewell, brother. Good luck.”

 

“Thank you,” replied Hanzo stiffly, trying to ignore the constriction in his chest. “To--to you, as well.” He only waited for the barest nod from Genji before he set off past him, almost marching along the trail towards the lights twinkling through the trees.

 

It was not long before the trees abruptly ended at the edge of what seemed to be a modest yet thoroughly modern development of buildings clustered around a crescent-shaped frontage road. The walls of the hotels and _ryokan_ were bright in the light spilling from their foyers and windows, and there seemed to be a good deal of business despite the travel restrictions and security measures in place around the Forbidden Four Prefectures--Hanzo could see at least a dozen people braving the cold and wandering the open areas between buildings, a sign that northern Honshu was growing less and less forbidden and foreboding despite the news out of Siberia and the looming presence of Hokkaido.

 

Hanzo made straight for the floating transponder that blinked blue over one end of the crescent, the sign of a waypoint. He did not meet or pass too close by anyone on the way, and soon he was setting down the subsystem to fish his comm out of his pocket to check the time, taking the opportunity to insert his earpiece as well.

 

He caught the time tick over from 1714 to 1715 when a driverless dark green two-door sedan drifted up to the waystation and settled to the ground, flashing its headlights briefly. He approached it and tried the authorization code, and the trunk immediately popped open. He deposited his suitcase inside but elected to keep the subsystem within sight along with his cello case, placing both in the cramped backseat before slipping into the driver seat. The onboard navigation already had the Aomori Ferry Terminal set as its destination--there was nothing more to do but let the car lift off and take the lead.

 

As always, he watched carefully for pursuit or a sudden roadblock as the car sped down the narrow two-lane road that rounded the southern flank of the volcano, according to the dashboard display map showing his route. At times the forest spilling off its slopes crowded almost all the way up to the roadside, which would have afforded excellent opportunities to stop and detain him, but soon enough the forest ended and opened up into flat, open, albeit abandoned farmland.

 

It was apparent that the inhabitants of the farming communities and villages had braved the unpredictable temper of the volcano to take advantage of the rich soil it provided--only the Crisis had been sufficient to drive them away. Now there were only pastures and fields overgrown with grass and bushes and the former orchards filled with fruit trees that had either died or twisted together into feral thickets without guiding hands to manage the once-orderly rows.

 

Order began to return once Hanzo reached the turnoff that left the volcano directly behind and the wide open Tsugaru Plains before him with the Tsugaru Mountains rising beyond, revealed through the darkness by faint white and yellow-orange lights burning steadily in their foothills, probably alongside the very highway the car merged onto, the modest countryside route expanding into a recently rebuilt four-lane freeway complete with holographic signage and a speed limit of 250 KPH for self-driving cars, though it would almost certainly drop back down again once the highway entered the narrow pass that crossed the mountains into Aomori City proper.

 

The car gathered speed, making it more difficult to see the fields flashing past in the half-darkness, but still it was obvious that there had been a harvest. It was largely over, though, and the fields had been cleared in preparation for the winter.

 

Hanzo leaned his seat back slightly and rested his eyes. He would not sleep or even doze until he was on the ferry, but he would take advantage of any downtime, especially while the nanites continued to work and kept the phantom pain at bay. No one was following, and there was little he could do about roadblocks at this speed.

 

The time passed without incident, without even too much introspection and self-recrimination, which was a small miracle, but it would come in time. Hanzo only opened his eyes his eyes when the car slowed as it approached the more curvy and windy mountain pass road. Even so, it did not take long before the car was descending into the narrow, L-shaped lowlands sandwiched between the Tsugaru Mountains and Mutsu Bay. Aomori City was gathered at the bottom of the L, and in the early evening darkness it was a sea of white and yellow lights. The traffic greatly increased. Hanzo had arrived during the evening rush hour, but the plethora of self-driving cars kept traffic moving more smoothly than it may have otherwise--though it certainly “helped” that Aomori had barely a quarter of its pre-Crisis population.

 

In more prosperous times Aomori had been one of the principal gateways to Hokkaido, and much of its history was tied to the great northern island--but so had its fall. The entire city, indeed, all of Aomori Prefecture, along with the neighboring Akita and Iwate Prefectures and Yamagata Prefecture facing the Sea of Japan, had been evacuated in the opening days of the Omnic Crisis. Its six million residents, joined by the similarly displaced five million from Hokkaido, had streamed southwards, the equivalent of evacuating Tokyo from an area sixty times as large, all while under the assault of the evermore sophisticated Omnics pouring out of the Hokkaido Omnium and overrunning the island before launching both ground and aerial strikes across the Tsugaru Strait.

 

Most of the communities on the coast had been destroyed, but Aomori had been largely spared by a quirk of Omnic strategy--the mountains cutting it off from the rest of Honshu had apparently been judged to be a hurdle not worth the hassle, leading most of the repeated invasions to focus on the Sea of Japan coast in an apparent bid to link up with the giant Omnic that primarily menaced the Korean peninsula but would occasionally lash out at neighboring countries, including Japan. The Omnics had also attempted to make their way down the Pacific coast towards Tokyo, but the defense of the capital had, somewhat controversially, led the JSDF to more aggressively defend the eastern coastline, though with little success before the establishment of Overwatch.

 

It was Overwatch, incidentally, that ultimately saved Aomori. The Omnics’ disinterest in the city led to Overwatch landing on the audacious tactic of using it as a base that was surrounded on all sides by Omnics. They secretly built up their forces there before launching an attack coordinated with the JSDF that ultimately cut off the Omnics on Honshu from their supply line in Hokkaido and from each other, separated on the western and eastern coasts with Overwatch striking from Aomori in the middle. Before the Omnium could manufacture reinforcements, the Honshu Omnics had been driven, metaphorically and often literally, into the sea. Overwatch then established three Watchpoints on the northern tips of Honshu, both to keep the Omnics at bay and to serve as nerve centers for the eventual push into Hokkaido and the final deactivation of the Omnium.

 

Aomori had been located roughly equidistant from all three of the Watchpoints and had served as their logistical center and supply depot, with Overwatch building or rebuilding key infrastructure that had been destroyed or left to deteriorate in the initial evacuation. This, in turn, became the backbone of the city for the first few brave and/or entrepreneurial civilians who crept back north once the Omniums in Hokkaido and worldwide were defeated, taking charge of their former or abandoned real estate with the expectation that Hokkaido would soon be similarly resurrected--but they had underestimated the terror of the Omnium in the Japanese national consciousness, with the accompanying caution and suspicion that the Omnium might spring back to life at any moment.

 

And no one had expected the resurgence of the Ainu.

 

Hanzo went over this history in his mind as the highway began to parallel the railway tracks that led to the harbor--the distinct irony of returning to this city with ties to Overwatch when he himself now had ties to the same was not lost on him. He had passed through here many times before and never thought of Overwatch in any more than a historical context, as any person might, never considering he might one day have a personal connection--perhaps even an intimate connection, considering all they had done to save Genji from his horrendous actions.

 

That opened the door to the introspection he managed to avoid during most of his journey, and he leaned back and sightlessly watched the mix of repaired and rebuilt homes and businesses sweep past the window as he was once more drawn into memories and dark suppositions, mostly centered on the clan elders and his failure to manage them, ending in their destruction.

 

It was almost a surprise when the car came to a slow stop and set itself down between the railway station and the ferry terminal. Hanzo glanced at the time on the dashboard display just before it switched off--the ferry would be leaving in twenty-five minutes. Just about the time passengers would be boarding.

 

He shook himself out of his thoughts and took a firm hold of the security subsystem. There was a time and a place, and they were both across the Strait.

 

The ferry terminal was a large, sleek, and airy building that had been built in the period of brief post-Crisis optimism that all would soon be as it was, including the traffic between Aomori and Hokkaido, but when Hanzo entered even the slow and nearly-silent _taptaptap_ of his footsteps had an echo. It was like stepping into a library rather than a mass transit hub.

 

Had the optimism not been in vain, there would have been good reason for such a large building--the Seikan Tunnel had been destroyed in the first year of the Crisis, thus the Shinkansen line from Tokyo ended here--but now he could see only a bare three other people other than himself, and all of them were terminal employees. If there were any other passengers, they must already have boarded.

 

True to his assurances to Winston, there was very little in the way of security. One could hardly be expected to rebuild the Omnium with only two suitcases and a cello case, all of which had surely been checked already when he crossed into the Forbidden Four. The ticket agent merely welcomed him and asked politely to see his ticket and scanned the QR code on the comm with detached and unsuspicious courtesy before wishing him a safe journey and allowing him to pass through the exit, the other two employees looking on with bland smiles.

 

Besides, if Hanzo had some sort of dastardly scheme, there were much sexier targets than the ship he now approached. It was barely bigger than the sightseeing tourist boats in the Kurnool District and clearly much older, though more modern photovoltaic surfaces and hardlight barriers had been added on through the decades. Still, while it was time-worn it was also well-kept, with fresh paint and polished wooden decks and not a speck of rust on any of its metallic surfaces.

 

“Welcome!” greeted a young woman in her late twenties dressed in a smart maritime uniform at the bottom of the gangplank. “May I see your ticket, please? Thank you!” She scanned the QR code once more with a handheld device before smiling up at him--she was about as tall as Agent Mei. “The _Hakodate no Yoake_ will be leaving in fifteen minutes. The common sleeping area is to the left of the gangplank, with the entertainment and concessions area further on. Would you like a wakeup call to watch the sunrise tomorrow? The forecast calls for sun in the early morning, so it should be quite spectacular!”

 

Hanzo thought wistfully about the spectacle of the sunrise over the Pacific, but he would need all the sleep he could get--and, as with the peak of Iwaki-yama, such beauty was wasted on him. “No, thank you.”

 

She nodded. “Please do not hesitate to ask one of the attendants if you require any assistance--one will be on duty at all times just outside the common sleeping area and another in the entertainment area. Have a pleasant journey!” He thanked her and boarded, his stomach already beginning to simmer with the slight movement of the gangplank, which only slowly intensified when he was on the ferry itself. He sighed in minor annoyance, but it was to be expected. It would only get worse from here.

 

On the right was an open viewing area on the aft deck of the ferry, though on this overnight journey few other than smokers or lovers would likely be using it. He turned left and entered the white-painted superstructure. The common sleeping area was behind a sturdy faux- _fusuma_ with equally faux-tatami mats with futons laid out in precise rows with blankets neatly folded at their heads, alongside pillows wrapped in plastic. Large square windows set into the wall opposite looked out over the moonlit bay.

 

Hanzo hesitated for a bare moment before he spotted thin slippers set off to the side of the _fusuma_ , likely meant for people with prosthetics like himself since the custom was usually no footwear besides socks on tatami. He toed them on before he stepped into the room. It was the largest onboard, with room for a dozen sleeping people, but at the moment it contained only two, a father entertaining his young child underneath a flatscreen TV set into the middle of the forward wall.

 

Hanzo headed straight for the far corner with a clear view of the single entrance, grateful to find no evidence of anyone claiming the futon there. Lining the bottom of the forward and aft walls were large cubbyhole-like storage spaces separated by wood partitions, each about a cubic meter in size. He stowed away his belongings in the one closest to the corner, arranging the cello case carefully so that it did not stick out too much yet was easily accessible, even if he would have to make a short dash from his bedroll were something to happen.

 

While he was still kneeling alongside the cubbyhole, he withdrew his comm after a swift glance at the father and child on the other side of the room, before he typed out a message to Athena asking her to activate the subsystem for a few minutes to listen for anyone approaching his luggage. After her confirmation, he set out for a short examination of the ferry, looking over the entertainment and concessions area, which consisted of two more flatscreens and a tiny store lined with snacks and microwavable meals where another young woman stood duty with a small smile and a professional nod before he moved on.

 

He moved swiftly past a CREW ONLY sign into the forward section of the ferry, glancing into a few spots he had found on previous trips on the _Hakodate no Yoake_ to make sure no one was hiding there, but just as he was approaching the bridge, a young officer stepped out of its entrance and frowned at him. “Excuse me, but no passengers are allowed in this area,” she said in a severe, admonishing tone.

 

Hanzo stopped short and smiled apologetically. “Yes, I apologize, but I was hoping to find Captain Takahashi. Is she in command today?”

 

Her expression immediately softened a little. “I’m afraid Captain Takahashi retired two years ago.”

 

Hanzo let his face fall. “Oh! Really? What a shame--for her passengers and crew, that is. I am sure she is enjoying it. She merited it.”

 

“She did,” the officer agreed readily with a small smile. “We miss her--sometimes she comes and rides to Nemuro--excuse me, Ni-mu-oro and back so she doesn’t lose her sea legs, but not today. Her first officer was promoted in her place.”

 

“I see,” said Hanzo, nodding agreeably. “Well, I’m sure we are in good hands, then. Please forgive my intrusion,” he finished with a bow of his head.

 

The officer bowed back. “Not at all.” She accompanied him back to the passenger area, partly to make sure of his being back in an authorized space and partly to move on and assist in casting off the gangplank and mooring ropes as the _Hakodate no Yoake_ prepared to take sail. Given the lack of an alert from Athena in his earpiece, Hanzo lingered by the large windows in the passageway outside the sleeping area, watching dockworkers wrestle the gangplank into its storage position under the white LED light posts lining the dock.

 

A barely perceptible whine reverberated through the deck, the sole noise generated by the electric engine that was also surely another recent renovation--this ferry had almost certainly been powered by diesel when it was first built, but photonic-electric batteries made this much cleaner, cheaper, and quieter alternative possible.

 

The ferry moved away from the dock with a few waves from the dockworkers to the officer and shiphand on the stern. They made their way back up the bridge, the officer nodding to Hanzo as she passed by, and Hanzo took advantage of Mutsu Bay’s calm waters (and thus his only somewhat perturbed stomach and low-level nausea) to watch the coastline move away as the ship picked up speed. Soon the white, yellow, and orange lights of Aomori were fading astern, replaced by a strip of flatlands gathered against the foothills of the Tsugaru Mountains, betrayed only by an occasional splash of light from a farmhouse or barn. The moon was constantly being revealed and obscured by clouds drifting aimlessly across the sky, its light sparkling on the low waves rippling across the bay. The stars were mostly invisible; Hanzo’s nightvision was being completely destroyed by the bright lights onboard the ferry. If they were to be extinguished, he might see more between the clouds, but that would not happen until curfew at 2230.

 

Hanzo stayed at the window until ferry passed through the narrow neck that separated Mutsu Bay from the Tsugaru Strait, turning to starboard to follow the coast of the Shimokita Peninsula until it passed out of the strait into the open Pacific. Then he toed back on the slippers and took up a station at the window closest to his bedroll in the sleeping area, opting to watch the peninsula there rather than try to catch a glimpse of nearly completely abandoned Hakodate on the Hokkaido side--the formerly vibrant and picturesque port and tourist attraction was a shadow of its former self with barely enough people to warrant being called a town, much less a city. Out of all the former municipalities in Hokkaido, only Ni-mu-oro had managed to swell back to its pre-Crisis population--and that was a modest 30,000 people. Even so, it was currently Hokkaido’s largest town and the intended capital of Ainu-Mosir, if the hopes and dreams of the tiny yet passionate community of Ainu intent on reclaiming their homeland bore out.

 

They might yet--with every passing year, Tokyo’s promises of actively repopulating the island sounded more hollow, more illusory, while the Ainu only seemed to thrive in the shadow of the Omnium that had given them the unexpected chance to revive the culture that had been all but extinct.

 

The hours passed uneventfully. Hanzo caught the moment when the ferry passed Cape Ōma, one of the narrowest points on the strait and the location of Overwatch’s former Watchpoint: Ōma. It stood on a small island just north of the cape itself, ablaze under unforgiving spotlights and peppered with red anti-collision lights. A helicopter came in to land as they passed by, the low drone of its propellers audible even as far as the ferry. The Watchpoint was known nowadays simply as JSDF Tsugaru 2--the three Watchpoints along the strait had been handed over to the Self-Defense Forces after Overwatch was disbanded, and Hokkaido was enough of a threat to merit their continued use. The sense of irony Hanzo had felt in Aomori returned amply amplified--Tsugaru 2 was a near-twin of the abandoned Watchpoint: Niigata. He never would have guessed during all his former voyages that it would have been advantageous to pay closer attention to this former Watchpoint.

 

The strait widened considerably after the cape, allowing more waves in from the mighty Pacific. The rolling motion of the ferry became far more pronounced, and Hanzo grimaced as he braced for his stomach to react as it always did, glancing at the large, cheerful sign marking the bathroom just off the sleeping area as he knelt on his chosen futon to keep from swaying overly much while standing.

 

He was surprised, astonished even, when, as the ship moved up and over wave after wave after wave, his stomach clenched and roiled--but much, _much_ less than usual. He had _never_ made the trip to Hokkaido without vomiting, and it always happened sooner rather than later.

 

Now, however, he was distinctly unwell but not violently so. He stayed where he was, keeping close to his possessions and, more importantly, to the bathroom off the main sleeping area for what should have been the inevitable moment his seasickness spiked and sent him barrelling towards the door, but the evening wore on with only a slight increase in his nausea. He even managed to become bored enough with waiting that he took out his comm to create a new account on the RIMS app, working his way through the qualifying exam with only moderate distraction.

 

He did not hit on a possible explanation until he finished up the exam and realized he had been on a Hokkaido-bound ferry for nearly four hours without succumbing to seasickness, which was--a marvel. A true marvel. He had never felt this well on the ocean in his life, and there was nothing to explain it until he remembered the equally miraculous effect Dr. Ziegler’s pills had had on his phantom pain--but surely phantom pain and seasickness were different enough that the nanites could not simultaneously affect both. It was his understanding that their programming was fairly limited, both practically and by design to prevent them from running amok, but--Dr. Ziegler _had_ done work on the single greatest medical invention since penicillin. Perhaps it was not too speculative to think she might have more capable nanites in her employ.

 

Hanzo was curious enough to put the question to Athena on his comm.

 

 

 

 

 

> >From: Agent Shimada
> 
> Excuse me, Athena, but do you know
> 
> which conditions and symptoms Dr.
> 
> Ziegler’s nanites treat by default?

 

 

 

 

 

> >Athena
> 
> Broad spectrum nanites are capable
> 
> of treating the following symptoms:

 

There followed a surprisingly long list. Hanzo soon found disequilibrium and nausea among them, largely solving the mystery, though it still confounded him that the nanites would still be working after so long.

 

He fixed the cello case with a considering look. His phantom pain was not debilitating, but his seasickness often bordered on it, and if the nanites contained it so well nearly twelve hours after administration, then another dose might douse it completely for nearly the rest of the voyage.

 

It would be almost foolish not to.

 

He glanced over the directions printed on the side of the amber bottle as he took it out of the case to make sure it was not too soon to have more, but every eight hours was apparently the limit. He shook out two pills and put the bottle back, standing to obtain water from the tap in the bathroom. He was already in there and swallowing the pills with a mouthful of water out of his cupped hands when it occurred to him how blasé he was being about leaving his possessions unattended--on previous voyages he could hardly be separated from them, apart from his initial search of the ship. Now, however, he was being fairly lax in his vigilance.

 

He studied his fellow passengers as he returned to his bedroll--they were both singularly non-threatening. The child had gone to sleep at some point, wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets with only their head poking out onto the thin pillow. Their father sat crosslegged on the next futon, reading or watching something on his tablet.

 

But more than that, he had slipped rather easily into relying on the subsystem to keep his possessions safe--the weeks he had spent in Tartur had conditioned him to trust in it more than he realized. Out of a bizarre surge of guilt and self-admonishment, he gave the case and his personal suitcase a cursory examination to ensure they had not been tampered with, but of course they had not been--the subsystem would have been listening for even the least suspicious noise, after all.

 

Still. He was becoming too dependent on something that could easily malfunction or power down or any number of things. He must work on becoming vigilant once more.

 

But he soon discovered that was more easily said than done.

 

A few minutes later, an attendant came by and quietly announced that it was curfew. The father acknowledged her with an equally soft tone and quickly readied for bed, disappearing into the bathroom and reemerging in pyjama slacks and a loose shirt before spreading out his blanket and hunkering down next to his child. Hanzo did not bother to dress down--he had spent nights in far less comfortable sleepwear, though he did leave his possessions in the care of the subsystem once more just long enough to brush his teeth, feeling a slight twinge of annoyance to be breaking his resolution so soon.

 

The annoyance was washed away when he realized that his seasickness had vanished in the little time since taking the pills--subtly enough he had hardly known it.

 

For the first time in his life he was at sea and at peace.

 

He could hardly keep from marveling as he went back to his futon, only barely remembering to check his luggage once more as he tested his--his “sea legs”, as it were. It was an odd and--faintly exhilarating--sensation to feel the deck shift and tilt beneath his feet without any hint of nausea or dizziness whatsoever.

 

He waved at the attendant to indicate it was alright to switch off the lights as he stood once more at the window. As the darkness overtook the room and his eyes adjusted, he was greeted by the sight of the moonlit sea stretching out to the misty, blurred horizon, with scattered clouds only barely masking the brilliant fields of stars behind.

 

Hanzo could easily pick out the constellations, both Japanese and Western: Subaru nestled within Taurus and the Three Stars of Orion’s Belt hung low over the horizon, having risen only recently. Hanzo picked out other constellations, murmuring their names in English, Japanese, and Mandarin under his breath, delighted to be able to see them with so little nearby artificial illumination nearby and with no mountains in the way--usually one or both conditions impaired him, and out on the open ocean seasickness was another factor preventing him from indulging, but not tonight.

 

Tonight, there was only fatigue tugging him away from the window, but he kept it at bay against his own better judgement for another hour or so--when could he expect another opportunity like this? He could not be sure it would not be never.

 

But at long last the lack of sleep, of _good_ sleep, had him almost literally crawling to his futon and tearing the plastic off his pillow as quietly as possible before spreading the blanket over his fatigue-heavy limbs.

 

He had just enough time to wonder at how pleasant the rocking of the ship felt before he fell into a dreamless sleep. It was far deeper and more peaceful than he had any right to expect--so, of course, it could not last.

 

He rose out of the dark well of slumber rapidly, but not so rapid as to not be cognizant of the sensation of hands pawing at his side and arm. He immediately tensed and shrank from the touch. He let out what was meant to be a loud grunt of annoyance or warning, but even in his half-awake state he could tell it was a pathetic mumble at best.

 

But it was ultimately advantageous--whoever was assaulting him heard the same noise and began to speak.

 

“ _Acapo! Acapo, hopuni! Emkota hopuni!_ ”

 

An assassin would likely not be speaking Ainu.

 

And they were equally unlikely to have such tiny hands.

 

He forced himself to still and rapidly blinked his eyes. The room came into focus fairly quickly, but his brain, unaccustomed to a deep sleep after so long, was still far behind.

 

Luckily, at the very least he could recognize a child when he saw one, though it took time to connect the strange room, the strange child, and the strange language.

 

The child was kneeling beside his bedroll, blanket caught and trailing from one of their legs, eyes wide in the dark below the short bangs of a pixie cut. They were tugging at Hanzo’s sleeve and arm with both hands, shaking it roughly with all the small strength they could muster. “ _Acapo!_ ” they said urgently to Hanzo’s uncomprehending stare.

 

It took an embarrassing six or seven seconds before Hanzo’s Ainu started to come back to him. “ _E--e=kor aca ney ta an?_ ” he said thickly, wincing at the pain in his throat after a long day of talking.

 

Where is your father?

 

The child began to sniffle, wiping at their nose with one hand. “I don’t know,” they said, Hanzo’s brain beginning to pick through their high voice and juvenile pronunciation with more ease. “I woke up and he was gone! Where is he? Can you find him?”

 

Hanzo sat up with a groan, the blanket falling off his chest and pooling in his lap. “He is probably in the bathroom, young one,” he said with more than slight admonishment. It was far too early to be woken from such a good sleep.

 

The child’s face crumpled. “I already looked there,” they said tremulously, on the very edge of crying, voice coming out in slight hiccups. “He’s not there either. Did the sharks come out of the toilet and eat him?”

 

Despite the hour and the rude awakening, Hanzo could not help a snort and a small smile. The image was amusing and so very childish. “No, I promise you,” he said, softening his tone and reaching out to pat the child on the head, the motion clumsy since he was still not altogether awake yet. “He probably went to ask one of the attendants a question or to get a snack.”

 

The child still looked stricken, with more than a little doubt crawling into their face. “Can we--will you help me look for him?”

 

“No,” said Hanzo immediately. “He left you here so that he would know where you are. If he comes back and you are not here, he will think the sharks ate _you_ instead. Though,” he added as an afterthought, “they cannot go through toilets.”

 

The child sniffed, still rubbing at their nose. Hanzo reached out and gently tugged their hand away. “Let me go get some tissue. You will rub your nose off that way.”

 

“Noses can’t get rubbed off,” retorted the child sullenly. Hanzo shook his head, still smiling, as he gathered himself and stood. The child scrambled up as well and grabbed a handful of his loose slacks just below the pocket. “Can I go with you?”

 

“There are tissues in the bathroom,” he said, gesturing at the door where he had spotted a box on the counter earlier. “I am only going that far.” Nevertheless, the child accompanied him as far the door and watched, eagle-eyed, as he entered and got five tissues, just in case. He had the child blow into one and threw it in the wastebasket before he shepherded them to the futon where they had been sleeping alongside their father. “Sit down,” he instructed. “I’ll wait here with you until your father returns.”

 

The child sat, obedient now that Hanzo had allayed their fear of abandonment. Still, they were ansty, shifting around as Hanzo retrieved their blanket from beside his own bedroll and dropped it around their shoulders. He knelt facing them, noticing with amusement that the child’s eyelids were getting droopy despite their consternation.

 

“You should sleep,” he suggested. “I will keep watch until your father returns.”

 

The child perked up as if insulted. “No!” they said petulantly. “No, I can stay awake until he comes back.” They looked around, eyes lingering on the shadows in the corners and cubbyholes. “Can you--can you tell me a story?” they asked, almost whimpering. “It’s da--I mean. I’m bored.”

 

Hanzo lifted an eyebrow, smile disappearing. A story? He knew some stories, but they were told in a baritone voice at a bedside not his own, his knees and lower legs aching as he listened to his father speak and watched him card his fingers through the short black hair of his brother as he lay comfortable and tucked into his bed. The stories were often heavy, the lessons obscure, and his childish annoyance and jealousy had given most of them a jagged, jaded edge that only increased as his father’s preference became more plain.

 

But they were all he had to comfort the small child before him now.

 

“My--my family,” he began hesitantly, “tells of an ancient legend about two great--” he stopped himself with a start and a sharp snap of his jaw, suddenly furious at himself and his sleep-addled mind. Why had his brain picked _that_ story out of all the others?

 

“Two great what?” asked the child curiously, straightening slightly and peering up at him.

 

Hanzo opened his mouth, but he really had been in a far deeper sleep than he imagined--he could not pick out a lie or a misdirection. His mind was full of dragon brothers and his mistakes, both his present mistake and the one years prior.

 

“ _Acapo,_ two great what?” asked the child again, on the edge of tears again for whatever infantile reason.

 

Giving up, Hanzo said, “Dragons. Two great dragon brothers. The Dragon of the--the North Wind, and the Dragon of the South Wind.” He grasped at the bare skin of his wrist, over the snout of the dragon curling around his arm.

 

The child’s eyes went wide and they smiled, showing their tiny teeth. “Dragons! I like dragons,” they gushed, gathering their blanket around them and shuffling forward a little.

 

Hanzo smiled blandly. “I’m afraid these dragons may not be to your liking,” he murmured. Seeing the child’s crestfallen face, he rallied himself and hastily added, “At least, not at first.”

 

“What happened?” they asked with apprehension.

 

Hanzo shook his head mournfully. “You see,” he said quietly, “for a long time they upheld balance and harmony in the heavens. But the two brothers argued over who could better rule their land. Their quarrel turned to rage and their violent struggle darkened the skies, until the Dragon of the South Wind struck down his brother, who fell to earth, shattering the land.”

 

“Meanie,” murmured the child, clearly trying to listen but head and shoulders beginning to sag again.

 

“Yes,” murmured Hanzo distantly, “more than even he knew.”

 

“What?”

 

Hanzo cleared his throat and continued the story, doggedly pursuing the end so as to switch subjects as soon as may be, when his brain was truly awake and not merely seemingly so. The child listened more attentively than they let on, lying back on their bedroll but demanding that Hanzo continue if he faltered or drifted into silence, tricked into thinking they had dozed off.

 

“Reunited, the two set out to rebuild what they had once destroyed,” he finally finished, feeling like the short tale had dragged on far longer than its length implied.

 

The child was silent for a few moments, just long enough to once again fool Hanzo into thinking they had fallen asleep at last, but they spoke. “I guess I’m happy,” they said sleepily, the words slurred and poorly enunciated. “The brothers are back together. That’s good.”

 

Hanzo shook his head. “It is not. The Dragon of the South Wind hurt his brother. He--” He caught himself. “--his brother could not become a dragon again after their fight,” he said instead. “He was forced to be a human forever. That is--sad. It is better to be a dragon.”

 

The child was quiet a little bit. “But the South Dragon’s a human now, too, right?”

 

Hanzo grunted.

 

“Right?” said the child, opening their eyes. “They’re both humans now, so it doesn’t matter.”

 

“The Dragon of the South Wind,” said Hanzo heavily, “chose to become human. It is not the same as being forced to be human.”

 

“Oh,” said the child. They stared up at the tiled ceiling for a few seconds. “But they both have two legs now. So even if the South Dragon chose it, it’s fair now. He can’t fly or--or bite off his brother’s head or something.”

 

Hanzo quirked an eyebrow at the word _fair_ , thinking of his legs and Genji’s--entire body. “Humph. Even so--the Dragon of the North Wind has the advantage now. He has been human far longer. He knows how to walk, run, jump, and fight like a human. The Dragon of the South Wind would be no match for him. He has no practice.”

 

“But the North Dragon forgave him!” blurted the child as they struggled to sit up. Hanzo placed his hand on the crown of their head and forced them back down.

 

“If you will not sleep, you must at least lie down,” he scolded.

 

The child obeyed, but only just. “He forgave him,” they repeated. “He can’t fight him. You can’t say it’s okay and then fight. That’s a trick.”

 

Thinking back to last May, to the extended duel and mocking words only for Genji to profess forgiveness at the end of it all, Hanzo could not help a bitter expression. “Perhaps.”

 

“He forgave him,” said the child decisively, voice thickening once more. “He forgave him. He can’t say that without meaning it. He forgave him.”

 

“He forgave him,” repeated Hanzo, more to placate the child more than anything, but a small but sharp twinge in his heart had him frowning.

 

Before he could analyze it, though, light footsteps came from behind. “Umeko?”

 

“Daddy!” the child cried, shooting to their feet with graceless speed. “Daddy Daddy Daddy, where were you?” they whimpered, their voice muffled. They had shot to their father’s side and pressed their face against his leg, holding on tight.

 

“Umeko, why are you up?” their father said tiredly, looking at Hanzo as he stood. “Did she wake you up?” he asked in Japanese, patting his child’s head distractedly. “I’m so sorry, she doesn’t speak Japanese, so--”

 

“It was nothing,” replied Hanzo in Ainu.

 

The father visibly relaxed. “Oh, I’m glad you could understand her at least,” he said with great relief in the same language. “I wouldn’t want you to have to sit with a kid you couldn’t understand.”

 

Hanzo smiled with tired reassurance. “No, no, of course not. She must have woken up while you were out, and she got frightened and woke me to ask where you had gone.”

 

The father grimaced and lightly tapped the top of his child’s head. “Umeko! That was rude.”

 

“But Daddy,” said the child, voice still muffled, “I thought--I thought a shark--”

 

“I was just out on deck talking to your mom,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “Really! You should’ve just waited until I got back instead of--” he paused and sighed. “But I shouldn’t have left you. I know you’re scared of the dark. I’m sorry. And I apologize to you again, of c--” he said, looked back up at Hanzo, before freezing.

 

In a flash, Hanzo knew he had committed another mistake. The child had pulled Hanzo’s sleeve up past his forearm, revealing the tattoo.

 

There was a pregnant pause as the father stared at it with wide eyes. Hanzo regarded him back warily. Finally, Hanzo tugged his sleeve back down, breaking the father out of his near-trance. He glanced up at Hanzo, swallowed, looked down at his child, and back up at Hanzo. “I--I’m--”

 

“I am ex-yakuza,” Hanzo stated in a _sotto_ voice, switching back to Japanese. He gestured at his arm. “I have not been able to afford removing the tattoo. You have nothing to fear from me.”

 

The father nodded slowly, out of obedience, it seemed, more than anything else. “Of course,” he muttered. “A lot of ex-yakuza come to Hokkaido to escape--I mean, ah--”

 

Hanzo sighed. The situation could not be salvaged. “I apologize. I will leave you and your child alone.” He rose to his feet and turned on his heel, heading for the cubbyhole to collect his possessions. He grabbed the blanket from the next bedroll over from his and threw it and his original one over his shoulder--it would be cold out on the uncovered deck.

 

As he crouched down to reach into the cubbyhole, he heard the father and child murmuring and moving behind him, possibly grabbing their own things before they, too, fled elsewhere, but soon he heard the tread of the father approach. He tensed and braced for harsh or fearful words.

 

He did not expect apologetic instead.

 

“Please, don’t.”

 

Hanzo looked over his shoulder. The father had stopped a few steps away, and he was _bowing._

 

“I have no reason to doubt you, and every reason to believe you,” he said formally as he straightened. “I don’t think many yakuza would sit at the side of a little girl who woke them up in the middle of the night and tell her stories.”

 

Hanzo smiled mirthlessly and turned back to his things. “You would be surprised what they do to appear benign,” he muttered.

 

“I’m--I’m sure. But please--you’ve been kind to my daughter. It would be awful of me to reward your kindness by forcing you out of your bed.” He paused. “Besides, if you were active yakuza,” he whispered, “I’m pretty sure you’d’ve just made _me_ get out and gone back to sleep.”

 

Hanzo could not help but snort. It was hard to imagine how he, heir or _kumichō,_ could have found himself intimidating some poor hapless father and his child on a little ferry boat in the middle of the sea, but he supposed he would not put it past some of his underlings. “Perhaps,” he allowed. “Still, if you would rather I go elsewhere--I understand why you would not want me near your daughter.”

 

“But you were,” answered the father immediately. “And you did nothing but help her. Exactly the kind of person I hope would be around when she needed them.”

 

Hanzo looked over his shoulder again and studied him. He looked--earnest. Rather like the cowboy when he was attempting to convince Hanzo of some unexpected benevolence, but without _nearly_ so much history to put it in doubt.

 

He found that he could believe this man, for the moment.

 

“Thank you,” he said simply, gently pushing his luggage back into place. “I am grateful. It is probably quite cold out on the deck.”

 

“Oh, believe me, it is,” replied the father with a small smile, rubbing at his arms. He wore a short sleeve shirt, so Hanzo could be reasonably sure that he himself was not yakuza, formerly or otherwise. “It would’ve been unbearable if I hadn’t talked to my wife for a while. She’s, uh--she’s in Mexico at the moment on business. Has been for a few months. But--” he glanced over at his daughter, wrapped once more in a blanket. He looked back to Hanzo and lowered his voice, though they were still speaking Japanese. “--she’s flying home in a couple of days. We were hoping to surprise Umeko in Disneyland, but her trip got extended. Now we’re going to surprise her at Grandma’s house.”

 

Hanzo smiled slightly. “That will be something she will remember forever.”

 

The father grinned back, his teeth pearly in the faint light. “That’s what we’re hoping. Anyway! I’m sorry she woke you, and sorry for almost forcing you out, but thank you for staying with her. I hope you’ll let me buy you breakfast tomorrow, to repay you.”

 

“That will not be necessary, but thank you,” said Hanzo, waving his hand to ward off the sentiment.

 

“I insist,” said the father firmly. “It’s the least I can do. Good night!” he said loudly, bowing and turning to cut off Hanzo’s further refusal. Hanzo pursed his lips, but it was too late--too early, he amended, getting the comm out of his pocket and glancing at the time, to be arguing over something so small.

 

He carefully refolded the extra blanket and set it back in place before laying back down on his futon. The father and child were once again lying side-by-side, and Hanzo blinked at them as the warmth gathered around his body once more, bringing back the promise of rest. Still, it took some time to calm his busy mind once more.

 

_The brothers are back together. That’s good._

 

_They both have two legs now._

 

_He forgave him._

 

Hanzo set his jaw against the tightness in his chest and throat and breathed past it, deep and slow. The rocking of the ship as it plowed through the waves set a convenient rhythm, one breath in as the ship rose, one breath out as it fell, in and out. In and out. In--

 

_He forgave him._

 

\--and out.

 

Slowly, inexorably, he drifted back down into unconsciousness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To sleep, perchance to dream.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I am so happy to announce two new beautiful pieces of art, both by the wonderful [Bluandorange!](http://bluandorange.tumblr.com/)
> 
> First is this moment from [Chapter 14 when Hanzo is super gay](http://bluandorange.tumblr.com/post/168761224170/afterdrop-by-claroquequiza-is-a-very-serious-fic) and it's awesome! Oh, Lúcio. Anyone would be blessed to have you by their side.
> 
> And next is [this incredible piece](http://bluandorange.tumblr.com/post/169176391910/inspired-by-reading-always-with-me-by) inspired by my other work [Always With Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8115694/chapters/18602038) and [Leoandlancer's](http://leoandlancer.tumblr.com/)  [Fool's Gold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12189714/chapters/27675384) here on AO3! It is such a beautiful piece with Dragon!Hanzo, and you can never go wrong with Dragon!Hanzo! Thank you so much!!!


	16. Homestead

Thunder rumbled in his chest and belly, and blood was sticky between and under his claws.

 

The long serpentine length of his body lashed and writhed, the sharp smell of ozone pierced his nostrils, and rain and wind whipped through his hair, roaring in his ears.

 

But thankfully, mercifully, his eyes were blind and he could see nothing. Nothing at all.

 

“Excuse me? Excuse me?”

 

Hanzo groaned a little as red-yellow light blossomed in his sight, the clear signature of sunlight through his eyelids. Every other sensation was driven away with a snap like a broken bone being set back into place.

 

He covered his eyes with his hand for a brief moment, his fingers relatively cool against his forehead before he shuffled up on his elbows and opened his eyes. An attendant he had not yet seen was crouching next to him. She pressed a finger to her lips and gestured towards the father and child--Umeko must have woken once more at some point and gone to cuddle at her father’s side. She was snuggling and clutching at his arm like a favorite stuffed animal.

 

The attendant had a wide smile on her face as she turned back to Hanzo. “We’re about thirty minutes out from Hirō,” she whispered. “I believe that’s where you’re disembarking?”

 

“Yes,” mumbled Hanzo, his throat feeling raw. He fought the urge to clear it, the noise surely too loud not to disturb the sleeping family. “Yes, thank you. I will be prepared.”

 

“Not at all. Thank you for your patronage,” replied the attendant brightly. She stood and discreetly retreated as Hanzo gathered his wits to him, slowly, out of the fog.

 

Despite the dream, he had managed to return to quite a deep sleep, judging from how compromised he was. It took a couple of minutes before he even felt prepared to stand, and he winced at several loud pops and creaks from multiple joints. He fetched his toiletries bag and retired to the bathroom--it had not occurred to him the night before to be thankful for its large size compared to the Orca’s, but he was now as he stripped off his shirt and pants and freshened up as best he could. The sink was even big enough to successfully tempt him into taking advantage of the warm water and wash his hair, which was greatly refreshing and served to wake him more thoroughly than anything else.

 

He dressed and returned to his futon to fold his blanket and quickly organize his luggage, quietly throwing the cello case across his back and sneaking out with a suitcase in each hand. The other two occupants of the room did not so much as stir the entire time, to his immense relief--the father owed him nothing, and now he would not have the opportunity to contend that.

 

He headed for the open deck. Hanzo could feel the nanites beginning to wear off and his stomach begin to return to its habitual bellyaching. He would take this opportunity to enjoy the spectacle of a sea voyage while he could.

 

The ferry was now heading southwest, angling for the gap in the breakwater that enclosed Hirō’s small harbor. The open deck was more or less fully exposed to the light of the morning sun, still low over the horizon but steadily climbing. Clouds were coming in from the west, but for the moment the sun was unobscured with a long, distorted, and sparkling reflection dancing upon the waves. Opposite were the imposing seaside mountains of Hokkaido, mostly green with pine but with patches of brown and yellow where the trees had shed their leaves for the winter, along with a row of white wind turbines along the crest of the nearest mountain, glinting almost painfully in the sunshine.

 

Hirō was nestled in a small river delta at their feet, a tiny village that was notable only for being the lone significant settlement between Cape Erimo and the equally tiny Kushiro 115km further up the coast. It, as was so often the case in Hokkaido, used to be quite a bit larger, but no more than perhaps seven or eight thousand people before the Crisis. Now there was clearly plenty of excess infrastructure, judging from the increasingly decrepit condition of the buildings scattered up the foothills, ending in roofless shells that had either fallen victim to severe weather or been cannibalized to shore up the inhabited core clustered around the harbor.

 

The ferry slowed and steamed through the exact middle of the gap in the breakwater before it carefully approached the sunbleached dock with a modest ferry building perched at one end that was barely more than a kiosk. A couple of dockworkers were waiting; at first they seemed fairly distracted. It was obvious even before the ferry got within listening distance that they were hotly debating something, but as the ferry nudged its nose towards the mooring capstans, they quite quickly and professionally caught the ropes thrown out by the ferry’s crew and quickly lashed the ship to the dock.

 

The officer and shiphand from yesterday appeared out of the superstructure and greeted Hanzo briefly before they helped position the old creaking gangplank--it made noises that were not the least bit reassuring, but it had not pitched Hanzo into the sea in years previous. He thanked the officer and the shiphand before stepping onto the gangplank, but a yell made him stop short.

 

“Wait!” screamed Umeko as she darted out of the passageway. “Wait! Breakfast, you forgot your breakfast!”

 

Her father jogged out after her, a small plastic shopping bag in hand. “Oh, good, we managed to catch you,” he exclaimed. “Umeko! Umeko, don’t go on the gangplank!” She stopped just shy of it, grinning up at Hanzo.

 

“Caught you, caught you!” she sang. “You tried to escape!”

 

Hanzo smiled wanly. “Foiled.”

 

“I did promise you breakfast,” chided the father, raising the plastic bag.

 

“You did.” Hanzo’s smile became slightly more genuine. “But you did not have to exert yourself.”

 

“Sure, sure,” said the father dismissively. “Anyway, here it is--I hope it’s to your liking, but since we didn’t wake up until, uh, five minutes ago--”

 

Indeed, Umeko was already shivering in her pyjamas. She was attempting to look and act tough, staring challengingly up at Hanzo as if daring him to refuse, but at this point he would accept more to get her back inside than for any other reason.

 

“Thank you,” he said warmly, setting down his personal suitcase and accepting the bag. “I appreciate it.”

 

“Not at all, not at all,” said the father with a smile of his own. “Have a good journey.”

 

“Goodbyyye,” yelled Umeko--why she was being so loud was a mystery. “Thanks for telling me about the dragons! Bye!” And with a short wave she turned tail and ran for the open door. “Cold cold cold cold cold cold cold,” she panted as she went. Her father shrugged with an indulgent smile and followed her more sedately.

 

Hanzo shook his head and picked up his suitcase, the plastic bag wrapped around his wrist, and disembarked.

 

The dockworkers were still loudly discussing something. Hanzo listened in as best he could even as he walked past the ferry kiosk, but it seemed to be nothing more than an argument about a bad call in a football match--nothing too concerning.

 

Hirō had once filled the entire mouth of the delta, but nowadays the inhabited portion was clustered at its southern edge. Hanzo’s ultimate destination was thus quite nearby, but he preferred to avoid the most direct route along the village’s main thoroughfare. Instead, he headed for a small residential street that would take him out of sight of the harbor straight away before turning onto an equally small road that looped around the back of most of the homes and businesses and their associated wandering and wondering eyes.

 

It took twice as long, but Hanzo made it the other side of the village without meeting anyone, thanks to the route and the early hour. He arrived at what could be termed a small compound that took up an entire, though tiny, block. A grocery store stood on one corner, but it was connected to a tall cinderblock wall topped with barbed wire that encircled the rest of the block, interrupted by a single wrought iron gate painted a stark black that contrasted harshly with the worn gray of the cinderblocks.

 

An old woman in her late sixties was folding up a scissor gate barring the main entrance. She was dressed in a light jacket and thick pants against the cold, her white hair free and loose and cut in a distinct semi-circular shape.

 

Hanzo did not even have to look at his comm to know it was precisely 0800--Asai Take had always been punctual.

 

He approached with deliberate noise, his legs bumping against both suitcases in each hand. The old woman looked up, did a doubletake, and whistled through a prominent gap in her front teeth, white against the prominent and intricate tattoos around her lips.

 

“Well!” she wheezed theatrically in Ainu--he would likely hear little else now that he was in Ainu-Mosir. “What a shock! You’re so early this year, Ifukube-san!”

 

He bowed respectfully despite the goading edge to her use of _-san_ . “I am not sure it is _so_ early, Asai,” he said deferentially. Ainu had no honorifics besides using the second-person plural verb and noun forms, something that Hanzo personally found difficult to employ, so he tried to compensate in other ways.

 

Asai waved her hand on him. “If you say so.” She clicked a fastener in place over the scissor gate and opened the door for him. “Well, come in! I suppose it will be business as usual, unless you’re early this year to _finally_ prepare for the arrival of a family, hmm?”

 

Hanzo shook his head in faux regret. “I am afraid there is still no prospect of such.”

 

“Of course not,” she groused as she went around the counter that held the cash register along with a plethora of small goods: snacks, lighters, batteries, and other things that customers might not remember needing until they saw them, as well as several locked deposit boxes set into the wall behind. “You’re getting old--just look at those grey hairs!--and this whole island needs more families. We need _children._ If you can’t find a spouse, there are plenty of kids who need a parent in this sad world of ours. You need to stop going south, Ifukube- _san,_ and settle here permanently.”

 

Hanzo nodded with practiced docility. Asai was punctual and dependable, down to the semi-annual harassment Hanzo endured upon arriving and leaving. She was an ardent Ainu nationalist and was constantly looking to bolster Ainu-Mosir by any and all means, from political activism to keeping a close eye on the small but steady uptick in the population as the nascent Ainu nation recruited members from across Japan, the Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, and the far east of Siberia.

 

However, many, including Asai, were willing to consider the Ainu Renaissance as a matter of culture rather than blood--so many Ainu had been absorbed into Japanese society during the centuries of determined assault and assimilation that there were likely to be ten times more Ainu by descent than in all of Ainu-Mosir, if only they knew it. Often it was impossible to tell--intermarriage had made any notion of determining membership with genetic testing problematic at best, and when the Ainu language had gone extinct with the last of the native speakers in the 2020s, the culture as a whole seemed poised to follow them into history.

 

The issue became only more confused when the Crisis erupted and the whole of Hokkaido was evacuated, throwing its inhabitants among the rest of Japan’s 42 unevacuated prefectures. It seemed like it would be the final death knell for Ainu culture.

 

Instead, it became an opportunity to save it.

 

Despite the extinction of the language, Ainu music, artisanry, cuisine, and some limited religious practices and festivals had managed to endure, and when the Omnium turned red and the populace fled, those aspects of their culture became acts of unity and defiance against the Omnics overrunning their homeland, defiance that was even taken up by Tokyo to help encourage the sentiment that Hokkaido must be retaken, encouraging the Hokkaidan refugees to band together with a fervor born out of wartime exile--and the dormant core of Ainu nationalism was reignited.

 

They had been determined to retake their homeland, but more than that, they began to dream of resurrecting their culture as a whole, language and all, and a flurry of research based on the revival of Hebrew culminated with the formal registration of 17,000 fluent Ainu speakers the same year the Hokkaido Omnium was shut down.

 

Despite the victory, Tokyo immediately waffled on actually allowing civilians to return, preferring to delay until the Crisis at-large was resolved and taking steps to militarize the island.

 

The Ainu took matters into their own hands.

 

Almost all 17,000 Ainu speakers set out in a hastily assembled fleet of small private craft and sailed to Nemuro, located on one of the eastern tips of Hokkaido and about as far as it was possible to be from the Omnium. The JSDF tried to evacuate them once more, but the defiance that Tokyo had encouraged during the fighting came full circle, and the small community commanded the attention of the world by threatening to declare independence if the JSDF and central government did not stand down.

 

Faced with international and domestic criticism, and especially when Overwatch publicly stated that it would guarantee Nemuro (renamed Ni-mu-oro)’s safety if the JSDF could not, the central government backed down and allowed the settlement to remain--which only encouraged more to come. The allure of rebuilding an entire culture from the bottom up proved to be one of the very few things that could overpower the fear of the Omnium still standing mostly intact in the west of the island--it did not help Tokyo’s plans for eventual resettlement at all that it stood at the other end of the same valley as Sapporo, overshadowing the former capital with nothing standing in its way if it were to suddenly reactivate, unlike the new Ainu towns and villages spreading out from Ni-mu-oro with the whole of Hokkaido’s central and eastern mountain ranges to shield them.

 

Since then there had been a great deal of pressure and activism among the small, tightknit communities that all that could be done to bolster their position _must_ be done, with a great deal of suspicion against outsiders who might diminish or undermine Ainu-Mosir or the lofty goals of its populace.

 

When Hanzo had first come here, it was with the audacious plan of using that suspicion to his advantage. Strangers were quickly, almost instantaneously noticed here, with a close eye kept on them until they revealed their intentions. True, Hanzo himself had to overcome that same suspicion, but he had grown up with ever-looming threats from every side, from law enforcement to his own family. He could deal with suspicion, and the first thing to be done to allay it was to present oneself as an ally as thoroughly as possible, and the best allies of the Ainu were the Ainu themselves.

 

The first year he came, he had stolen a lifeboat off a ferry from Akita to Aomori and landed on a hidden beach near Hakodate before heading northeast to scout and inspect many promising sites for caches he had identified from satellite images, furiously studying Ainu all the while on a tablet he kept charged with solar panels perched on his backpack as he hiked up and down the island over the course of four months. It had been an almost ludicrous chunk of time given his situation, but the almost complete isolation meant it had been the first time since first fleeing Hanamura that he had felt something resembling security and peace.

 

He was alone. As he should be--and his efforts had been well-rewarded in the end.

 

While Asai had been somewhat shocked to see a young man walk out of the wilderness, his stilted Ainu was a point in his favor. Still, her initial theory was that he was some sort of JSDF agent monitoring the Omnium, the Ainu, or both, and she had been appropriately wary for a while, but Hanzo had selected her as his main liaison in Hirō for a reason: she was a very prominent member of the community, and earning her trust meant the trust of the village followed, once she gave it.

 

She had apparently eventually settled on the idea that Hanzo was flirting with living among the Ainu one day, but, like many young people, he was not satisfied with the opportunities on the island and thus went south for most of the year to find more lucrative work. He _was_ a bit strange in that he wintered in Ainu-Mosir when most young people only returned home during the summer to help their families during the warm weather, but that same wintertime isolation was probably what convinced her that he was clearly in need of some companionship, preferably of a kind that would keep him anchored there.

 

“Eh, one day you’ll let your beard grow,” she said as she opened up Hanzo’s deposit box, the local phrase for marrying and settling down. “But for now--we moved the batteries to the other alcove, the one right next to your unit. You need supplies for the road?”

 

Hanzo shook his head. “Not now. After the typhoons have passed, I may need more.”

 

“Oh, good, you know. I was going to knock you out from behind and stash you in your unit until afterwards,” she said somewhat snidely. Hanzo opened his mouth to at least deflect what he knew was coming, but _she_ headed off the deflection. “Stay in town,” she all but ordered. “I know you’re a hermit, but there’s plenty of houses you could hunker down in. Doesn’t need to belong to anyone but you for a few days.”

 

“Thank you, but I have shelter,” he replied respectfully, holding out his open palm. She dropped a large key in it with a scowl.

 

“Alright then, go get crushed under a tree,” she snapped. “If you’re not back by April we’ll know to find someone else to repopulate.”

 

“Of course,” he said blithely. She snorted and waved him away.

 

Hanzo walked through the length of the small grocery store, the shelves well-stocked but lacking much variety, before pushing through a backdoor with an electronic lock that blinked green just as he reached it. He entered a small courtyard with two rows of storage units, ranging from narrow closets to one that was as large as a small garage. Hanzo headed for one of the intermediate ones and unlocked the weighty padlock at the base of the roller door, hefting it up and open with a shriek of metal against metal.

 

The morning light fell across the tarp-wrapped contents. He set down his suitcases and moved forward to sweep off the coverings to reveal first a sturdy-looking hovercycle and then the boxes containing the saddlebags, straps, and buckles that Hanzo used to carry anything that would not fit on his back or in the storage compartment under the seat.

 

He slid the battery out of the chassis and went to swap it out with one of the others sitting where Asai had indicated, where they sat plugged into the wall. Many of the aforementioned young people stored their vehicles here when they went south to work, and Asai kept the batteries fully charged and waiting in case one of them were to return unexpectedly. One of the great advantages of the post-hydrocarbon economy for tiny communities such as Hirō was the relative ease of generating electricity locally from wind and solar, but the lack of an integrated power grid meant that shortages were entirely possible, though thankfully not too common given the low consumption.

 

He returned to the unit and slid the new battery into place before he began to strap both suitcases on either side of the chassis, with a weight accompanying his personal suitcase to counter the heavy subsystem on the other side. Once he was satisfied that everything was balanced and securely in place, he powered the hovercycle on. It made a soft humming noise as it lifted off the ground, and Hanzo nudged it out of the unit, slamming the door back down and locking it before pocketing the key.

 

He straddled the hovercycle and slowly approached the wrought iron gate. The proximity sensor sensed the key and dutifully opened to allow him out, and Hanzo kicked up a little speed as he floated out onto the road behind the compound and headed for the half-ruined highway that led almost directly northward.

 

It led around a spur of the mountains that delineated the delta, and on the other side a wide valley opened up, rolling out to the horizon and out of sight with only a few rolling hills to liven up the terrain beyond the long abandoned farms and fields. Hanzo had quite a ways to go, but the former freeway had been subjected to heavy warfare and then left to the elements for a long time, so he was forced to keep to a fairly sedate pace in order to maneuver around the worst of the fissures and potholes that even the hovercycle could not contend with.

 

In the old days, this journey would take around ninety minutes, but now Hanzo would be lucky to make it in four hours--but there was no hurry. The worst thing that could happen (after being discovered and killed, of course) would be making the journey after nightfall, but given the early start, that was unlikely if there were no interruptions.

 

As if on cue, the earpiece chirped.

 

“Agent Shimada, this is Athena. Agent Mei would like to speak with you, if you are able.”

 

Hanzo grimaced, but he dutifully looked for a sheltered spot, finding a place where a great conifer had either taken root after the Crisis or been left to run wild, leaning drunkenly over the freeway with its spindly branches covered in green needles and providing some adequate cover. He pulled over into its shade and parked the hovercycle almost under its branches before he tapped at his earpiece.

 

“I am available, Athena.”

 

“One moment, please.”

 

It was, indeed, ony a moment later when Agent Mei’s voice came over the line. “Hello?”

 

“Greetings, Agent Mei.”

 

“Hello! Hello, how are you?”

 

He shook his head. He had started to get used to the cowboy’s personal inquiries, but that in itself had not prepared him to receive them from anyone else. “I am well, Agent Mei. And yourself?”

 

“Fine! Just fine! Thank you!” she said, a little fretfully, and Hanzo braced himself for some kind of bad news--about the typhoons, perhaps. “Well, ah, I have--I mean, I’d like to ask if you might be willing to, uh--to go on a little side mission?”

 

Furrowing his brow, Hanzo glanced towards the sun but said, “Of course, Agent Mei. What am I to do?”

 

“Oh, well, it’s not urgent or really necessary,” she hedged, “but since the typhoons are on their way, it would be nice to get some data from off the ground, and there’s an old automated Overwatch weather station that’s fairly close by--but if it’s _too_ far, don’t even worry about it! But you should be getting the location right now.”

 

Hanzo unclipped the comm from his belt just as it pinged, and he unlocked it and studied the map application that popped up. He frowned. It was not exactly out of his way--it was _past_ his way. Obihiro was close to the middle of the wide valley he was transversing, while the weather station was marked in the mountains off to the west, fairly deep within the mountains.

 

But what really annoyed him was that it was fairly close to his southern cache--he might even be able to see the entrance to it from there. The weather station looked to be on the summit of a mountain.

 

It would be tempting to just head for the cache--he would almost certainly be able to endure the typhoons better there than in Obihiro, but--but he was not accustomed to go straight to his caches.

 

He did a bit of thinking, then spoke, “I believe I will be able to without any trouble, Agent Mei. However, it would be best for me to go to my shelter first and then to the weather station.” The hovercycle battery would last longer without the extra weight. “Would the delay be acceptable?”

 

There was a brief pause. “Yes, that should be okay! The typhoons haven’t sped up or anything, so you should be safe! Still, do you know much about lightning safety? It can be dangerous on those peaks when a storm’s approaching!”

 

He reassured her that the moment he noticed any static or crackling, crunching noises he would flee back down the mountain. She thanked him profusely and promised to send a schematic of the weather station while he was en-route--she did not know exactly why it had failed, but there should be a repair kit stored along with it and hopefully it would contain what he needed to get it up and running once more.

 

He powered up the hovercycle and continued on his way.

 

This portion of countryside was much like the abandoned fields he had passed through on his way to Aomori--there was the same snarl of feral plants, shrubs, and trees overtaking the once tidy and pristine fields and pastures, along with the occasional weatherworn building that was in a state of greater disrepair proportional to the harsher weather. But there was a key difference:

 

The Omnic remains in Honshu had been cleared away long ago.

 

Soon Hanzo was dodging a plethora of rusted wrecks and hulls strewn about the freeway at random intervals, some standing alone, others in small groups with their mangled remains twisted together from the force of the killing blows. Still, they were only the very largest of the wrecks, the ones too large for the combined JSDF/Overwatch forces to shove to the sides of the road as they had hurried to establish their next striking point. Those that _had_ been small enough littered the roadside in droves--they were the more disturbing sights, piles and piles of limbs, torsos, and heads more on par with the generic and mass-produced Omnics that OmnicaCorp had meant to manufacture. They had become the first waves of infantry and cavalry instead, buying time for the rogue Omnium to design and build the heavier, deadlier war machines that had cost so much to defeat.

 

Over time the remains were slowly falling apart from rust and corrosion or being employed as impromptu trellises by various forms of flora or as building materials for the local fauna--one year, Hanzo had even happened upon an E54 unit that was being used as a den by a vixen and her cubs, entering and exiting through a jagged hole blown straight through the siege weapon’s torso. All the same, it was quite the post-apocalyptic scene that stretched on for kilometer after kilometer, with the Omnic wreckage steadily thickening as one got closer to the Omnium until they virtually carpeted every square meter of space.

 

In richer countries scenes like these had largely disappeared through determined cleanup and recycling programs--at least, in areas that were likely to be seen by the public. In poorer countries, much the same had happened, but in a haphazard way as salvagers picked apart the deactivated and destroyed Omnic weaponry, leaving only the most worthless or troublesome components behind. Ainu-Mosir had the dubious distinction of falling into a third category, a rich country that could afford a coast guard to keep pillagers at bay but was distinctly uninterested in funding a cleanup, another point of contention between Ni-mu-oro and Tokyo.

 

Hanzo hurried on without allowing much of a glance at the ruined hulks around him, not even at the two gargantuan armed mobile refueling stations, each the size of a five-story building and so dense and heavy that they were literally sinking into the ground over time. They completely blocked all four lanes of the freeway, forcing Hanzo to follow the deep ruts in the roadside dirt left behind by the the JSDF and Overwatch’s heavy equipment, visible even after decades.

 

Still, it was a sobering look into Omnic-occupied territory, and Hanzo could not entirely escape the heavy weight of history. It was a much different scene than the Kadapa District--while there, Hanzo had thought wistfully of the different atmosphere of Hokkaido, where most of the populace had managed to escape, thus sparing the island the same feeling of human tragedy.

 

But now--

 

Perhaps it was the result of spending so much time in an Omnic-friendly country. Perhaps it was after meeting Anushka, Ramya--and perhaps even meeting the Omnic monk and nun--but the scene had a new tone to it, a distinctly uncomfortable edge, a bitter taste of metal in the air that coated Hanzo’s tongue.

 

It felt like Hanzo had been overlooking a different kind of tragedy.

 

He concentrated on the road and the route, and ignored the corpses all around as best he could.

 

After a comparatively non-eventful journey, Hanzo saw the ruins of Obihiro appear in the distance. It had once been a good-sized regional hub, but unfortunately the Omnics had agreed and set up a nerve center for the defense of the eastern coast. The closing chapters of the Liberation of Hokkaido were also the end of Obihiro, and even at a distance it was clear the result of the human assault and Omnic defense was a firestorm that gutted the city. Hanzo had ventured into the city center a few times, but there was little to find there--the firestorm had been sufficient to melt some of the Omnics and steel-frame buildings into misshapen puddles, and little else had survived the hellish temperatures.

 

Hanzo turned off the freeway well before he reached the city limits, though--his stash was in one of the many scattered farmhouses in the fields to the southeast, far from anyone’s attention during the Crisis or after. The road here was overgrown with grass forcing its way up through the asphalt and concrete, distinguishable more as a gap between the surrounding fields more than anything, but Hanzo knew the way.

 

He also knew trouble the moment he saw it.

 

The farmhouse was the first structure that appeared on his left three or four kilometers up the road. Hanzo had selected it because it stood at the base of a small hill, which helped shelter it from view and from the wind. It was fairly nondescript, a typical home that one might find anywhere in Japan, though more spacious and sprawling since it was not packed into a city or a suburb, with slightly heavier construction to match the weather this far north. But now as he approached, he spotted the yawning black hole where a firmly shut and locked door should be.

 

He slowed the hovercycle almost to a crawl, giving himself time to analyze the situation and decide if he should investigate or flee. He saw to his dismay that several of the windows were blown out, an inevitable consequence of a hole allowing the wind to enter and be caught by the interior, often breaking through the glass in a bid to equalize the pressure differential. When he got a bit closer, he could see several objects scattered around the entrance, a couple pieces of furniture and what he instantly recognized as some of the thick plastic containers he stored his supplies in.

 

The Japanese Coast Guard was not perfect and there were some among the Ainu who felt no qualms to help themselves to the bounties of the island--but whatever the case, Hanzo’s stashes had fallen victim to scavengers before.

 

Disappointment was bitter in his mouth and heavy in his chest. He heaved a deep sigh and turned the hovercycle around. Whatever was left behind would not be worth his time.

 

He drummed his fingers on the handlebar of the hovercycle, trying not to get so preoccupied as to let his attention on the road waver, but he had a choice before him. He could not possibly inspect and possibly repair the weather station _and_ make it to another stash before nightfall, and there were many reasons why he wanted to avoid that, the unpredictable road conditions and a power-hungry headlight visible for kilometers upon kilometers chief among them. He was sure that Agent Mei would be accomodating of this failure even after his personal reassurance that he would be able to fulfill it with little problem, but the temptation of the cache so close by was growing stronger, even as he did the mental calculations and frowned at how little time he would have to inspect and repair a stash if there was anything wrong with it--and how disastrous it might be if he went all that way only to find it pillaged as well.

 

If nothing else, his cache was close enough to the weather station that if he _did_ find it compromised, it would not be _that_ long after nightfall when he got to another stash--and it would increase the potential sites for refuge from two to three.

 

And if he stayed at the cache, he would be able to check on the colony right after the typhoons to make sure it had weathered the storm.

 

Plan formed, he revved the hovercycle a little, glancing at the battery level. It was a shame he had wasted power by coming out here for nothing, but it was still four-fifths full.

 

He skirted Obihiro close enough to pass through a street full of blackened, melted shells of buildings before finding the freeway once more and heading almost due west, towards Ainu-Mosir’s central mountain range. There were several alpine valleys hidden among them, most hiding small farms or mines with the occasional ski resort peppered among them. If Hanzo remembered correctly, the weather station should overlook one of those resorts, but he would find if he was correct soon enough.

 

After another hour of careful driving among the shadowy ruins of both human and Omnic dilapidation, Hanzo finally entered the mountains that had steadily approached until they towered immense and green-brown above him. At first he had to slow down even more to avoid the obstacles in the road--this had once been the main highway connecting Sapporo with the eastern coast, and it had been heavily used during the Crisis, but almost all traces of the conflict were left behind as he turned onto a smaller highway leading northward into the virtual maze of valleys and mountain passes that crisscrossed the range. Most of them did not lead to anywhere strategic and thus escaped notice, occupation, and subsequent destruction, though some random road and railway tunnels bored through the mountains had been demolished for one reason or another. Three or four others had succumbed to earthquakes and landslides as well, but for the most part Hanzo was rather ironically able to travel much faster through the mountains than through the flat plains.

 

He entered the largish mountain valley where Agent Mei’s weather station was located through one such undamaged tunnel, grateful for the hovercycle’s ability to pass over the huge stagnant puddles of water collecting in it that were almost big enough to be ponds. Before him opened up a wide yet sinuous river valley that held far more structures than one would expect for such an isolated area--he was almost certainly correct about the ski resort then.

 

He slowed and stopped under a grove of pine trees just off the road to check his comm, looking up from the comm and down again to confirm that the weather station was atop the highest mountain bordering the valley--but luckily, one of the former ski runs that led almost up to the very peak looked fairly clear of encroaching saplings and trees from the surrounding forest, at least from this distance.

 

Hanzo ended up going almost directly through the ski resort itself on his way, and it had once been impressive--he was surprised to see four thirty or forty-story skyscrapers arranged in pairs come into view from behind a ridge as he went along, their windows blown out and rust running down their facades, but still towering over the rest of resort, though they themselves were greatly outdone by the mountains behind. There were a few dozen other buildings scattered about, ranging from maintenance sheds to posh hotels with torn curtains still fluttering from the shattered windows, all covered in moss and vines and half-hidden behind tall grass and shrubs that were brown and brittle and rattling in the stiff breeze pouring over the mountains.

 

Hanzo maneuvered the hovercycle offroad and up the slope carefully, mindful of any hidden pits under a thin layer of overgrowth--such was a common danger in Ainu-Mosir, where one never knew where a misplaced bomb had gouged out a random crater. Grass and branches scrapped at the hovercycle’s undercarriage and at his possessions strapped to its sides, but he did not hit any snags, literal or figurative, before he crested the ridge just below the summit and spotted the weather station only a little further up.

 

It sat alone in a small meadow of low scraggly plants, either above the treeline or in an area so windswept it sucked the moisture even out of the hardiest of trees.

 

He set the hovercycle down at its side, got off, and walked around it, stretching his legs while he eyed the antenna, anemometer, and other instruments on the spindly arms set above a metal box with locked panels.

 

Hanzo was pleased to almost immediately spot the likely problem. A small solar panel was just to the south of the weather station, set on a long pole to keep it above the wintertime snows, similar to many solar panels he had seen set atop electronic traffic signs. They were connected by a long wire stapled to ground, and at one point it was clearly frayed, almost snapped. Perhaps an animal had gnawed or tripped on it--there were plenty of brown bears, pika, and deer around.

 

True to Agent Mei’s word, repair supplies, including a spare spool of wire and cutters, were in the box, though he regretfully had to force its panels open and compromise their integrity. He could only hope that the storage was isolated from the weather station’s electronics. He set to work, humming indistinctly to himself to offset the loud and lonely moan of the wind as it swept across the peak and ridge--it was carrying clouds with it, ominous and grey, from the southwest, likely the harbingers of Typhoon Megi. The storm would be arriving sometime tomorrow morning, after all.

 

Replacing the wire was simple work, something he had done many times before while repairing and replacing the solar panels and windmills that powered his caches, though he was wary of the potential of getting shocked once the circuit was completed--he did not have his insulated gloves with him. But he managed to complete the work to his modest satisfaction in less than twenty minutes. He gave the station a few minutes to charge its batteries before pulling out his comm and tapping his earpiece.

 

“Agent Mei,” he said loudly over the wind, turning to shelter it from the wind as best he could.

 

She answered almost immediately--Athena must have advised her that he had arrived. “Hey! How are you?”

 

“Can you hear me all right?” he asked, keeping his voice raised.

 

“Oh, definitely! Is it super windy there? Don’t worry, the noise cancellation on these things is great, I can hear you perfectly!”

 

Oh. That was good to know.

 

“I believe I may have fixed the problem,” he said in a more normal voice, though it was still raised just so he could hear himself. “There was a damaged wire. Can you confirm whether it is receiving power or not?”

 

“It--it is!” cheered Agent Mei, almost too loud in Hanzo’s ear. “It is! I’m already getting telemetry--windspeed is eleven meters per second, air pressure is one hundred two kilopascals, relative humidity is 81%--great! This is great!”

 

Hanzo nodded, listening to her exuberance with relief. “Excellent. Is there anything else I should check before I leave?”

 

“Oh, ah--I don’t think so. How’re you doing, though? You never answered!”

 

Hanzo could not help a quick eyeroll. Agent Mei was insistent about the most peculiar things. “I am doing well.”

 

“How’s your trip going? I bet you can already see Megi’s outer bands from up there, it’s starting to close in, it’s already off Niigata Prefecture--do you know where that is?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “Yes.” He shook himself at his sudden dour and thoroughly inappropriate tone, trying again quickly. “Yes, that is indeed fairly close. I will head to my shelter now.”

 

“Oh, good. Is it close by?” Hanzo had swiveled his head to look in the cache’s direction even before she asked her question, and he could indeed see the general area of it from here. The mountain he stood on was the tallest in the immediate vicinity, but the volcanic peaks of Tuk-a-chi were taller still and easily identifiable. The cache lay in-between here and the main volcano, in one of the valleys at its foot. In fact, it looked as though he could simply follow this ridge down the mountain’s flank towards--

 

He must have been distracted by his thoughts for bit too long--next he knew, Agent Mei was backtracking, stuttering over the commlink. “I-I-I mean, you don’t have to tell me where it is over the comm, I’m just--I thought it was a--never mind, sorry, sorry!”

 

“I apologize, Agent Mei, I was distracted for a moment,” he reassured her hurriedly, even waving a hand in the air at no one. “I will be able to reach there in a fairly short time.”

 

“Ok, then I won’t keep you any longer,” said Agent Mei, though still with an apologetic air. “Thank you so much for your help! I owe you one!”

 

“Not at all, Agent Mei,” he said a little brusquely, trying to dissuade any notion of being owed anything for fulfilling his duty. “Goodbye.”

 

“Bye!”

 

He replaced the comm on his belt and returned the tools and supplies to their place, doing his best to hammer the panels back into place with a few blows with his fists, though only with limited success. He got back on the hovercycle and started it up, heading north along the spine of the ridge connecting to the next mountain. He thought he could see both a trail and a road in that direction that led towards Minamifurano, and the naked ridge devoid of trees was as good a road as any for the hovercycle.

 

His slight gamble paid off--he soon came to the trail, which itself led to the road, which was cracked and covered in moss and grass but still perfectly usable, and it did indeed lead directly into Minamifurano, a little town just outside one of the two entrances to his cache.

 

He usually did not come to it from this direction, but his paranoia had prepared for it anyway. He sped around the outskirts until he came to a small cluster of former businesses just to the side of the town’s school. He left the hovercycle wedged between a low concrete wall and the school’s auditorium before he took out his quiver and Storm Bow, slinging the former over his shoulders and keeping the latter at the ready.

 

He crept carefully but quickly around his destination, approaching from the rear with eyes peeled for any sign of disturbance, but all that had changed was the mix of leaves and pine needles blown about the small courtyard that was gathering into thick mats in the corners and the lee of the buildings. Still, he fired off a sonic arrow, his eyes sweeping to and fro as his implants activated--and found nothing.

 

Satisfied, he got out his keys and deftly unlocked a rear service entrance and slipped inside, shutting it silently behind. He stood still for a few moments to let his eyes adjust enough to see any further sign of entry not his own, but from here the back office of the former tourist office looked as they had the years before when he had come to check on the equipment he stored here.

 

He did a quick final sweep of the perimeter, checking the back office and main lobby before he was satisfied that no one had come here since he himself. He moved behind the counter of the lobby, slung Storm Bow over his shoulder, and squatted, opening the cabinets there to reveal two long plastic containers. He set them on the counter and snapped open the lids, revealed the wings and fuselage of a fixed-wing drone in one and a large, folded-up solar panel in the other. He assembled the drone with quick, practiced movements, a sense of satisfaction washing through him at the familiar routine and even a little bit of anticipation--soon, barring anything unforeseen, he would be somewhere where he was as safe as someone like him could be.

 

He stepped back from the drone when it was assembled and studied it. The drone’s photovoltaic surface did not look cracked or overly dusty, and the frame did not look worn or in need of repair or replacement. He oiled the propellers whether they needed it or not before he got the controlpad out of the box and turned it on. There was just enough power in both the drone and the pad to test the propellers, flaps, and cameras before he went to set up the solar panel on the ground outside to charge the batteries. The photovoltaic surface of the drone could keep up with the power drain of flying even under thin cloud cover, but it would be contending with strong winds today.

 

Once the panel was laid out and he had carried the drone outside to connect it and the pad, angling its nose into the wind to keep it from getting tossed around by the wind, there was nothing to do for about an hour but keep watch on the surrounding buildings and mountains for any betraying movements or artificial glints.

 

So far, so good.

 

Ainu-Mosir had treated him well over the years. The isolation was such that even now, with Hanzo’s usual protocol so disrupted and coming to his cache long before he should, he could not help but begin to take comfort in the silence and stillness around him. It was not technically silent or still, of course, what with the wind that slowly but steadily strengthened and the accompanying creaks and rustlings of tree branches and dead grass as they bowed and rattled, but the scene was devoid of human noise and human motion. There was no one to analyze, no one to puzzle out, no one with any agenda, hidden or otherwise.

 

It was just silent and still.

 

Hanzo kept up a patrol as he waited, however, always with a clear line of sight on the drone, Storm Bow always ready to be swept off his shoulder at a moment’s notice. Despite the lack of any sign of surveillance, this would be the critical moment that an enemy might pounce, to get the jump on him before he could send the drone aloft to search for observers or signs of discovery. He must stay vigilant for at least a little while longer, but he could also admit that it was also a chance to get his circulation up after the long journey and to admire the surrounding landscape. The mountains were low and not particularly picturesque here, but he did not often see them before the snows came, so there was a certain level of novelty from seeing them in late autumn.

 

However, he could barely see white peaks peeking over them both to the east and the north, where the grander summits of Ainu-Mosir lay. He had a vague desire to visit them someday--there had been many national parks here with spectacular vistas before the Crisis--but he could never justify the time nor the potential exposure. He could only content himself with incidentals.

 

Just when the sun was beginning to disappear into the oncoming cloudbank as it prepared to set, Hanzo checked the drone and control pad and found both of them fully charged and ready to go. He prepared a short runway by sweeping the leaves off the worn concrete of the courtyard with his feet, and with a little bit of bumpy maneuvering the drone was in the air and rising rapidly above the abandoned center of Minamifurano. Hanzo tried to look deceptively distracted--now would be the time to strike--but no attack came, and soon he was guiding the drone in a lazy arc back the way it came before, sweeping once more for anyone in the town or the slopes above besides himself before aiming it towards the narrow pass into the valley that held his cache.

 

He slowly walked back indoors when it disappeared from his view, eyes trained on the overlay of infrared and visible light on the control pad’s screen as the drone followed the pass, the view wobbling a bit from the wind shears coming off the surrounding ridges. The automatic flying software compensated for it far more than Hanzo--he was no pilot, and it had cost no little money to find drones that made up for his lack of skill, but it had been worth every yen in the end.

 

An irregular depression opened up before the drone’s lens, shaped somewhat like half a snowflake. It was enormous, more than twice the size of the ski resort’s valley, and much flatter. Beyond, a U-shaped glacial valley led down to the depression from the summits of Tuk-a-chi, a stratovolcano that had filled in former valleys with volcanic ash and pyroclastic flows over the eons, filling this depression with fertile soil that had once been well worth defying the threat of the volcano--Hanzo estimated that at least three separate families and possibly as many as eight had once owned and farmed the land here, judging from the homesteads scattered about. Together they had once packed in fields to take advantage of every hectare of space, with weirdly shaped borders fitted to the edges of the depression, the gullies that a half-dozen streams and irrigation channels cut into the packed volcanic ash, and each other.

 

But it was all abandoned during the Crisis, with no sign whatsoever that anyone who once worked here intended to return. Hanzo had even searched property records to see if he could find if anyone yet lived who might make a claim on this place and found nothing--whatever tax and property records existed had apparently not made it out of Sapporo.

 

It had proved a tempting place to establish a cache--the depression was a dead end that led from and to nowhere, it was shielded from the worst of the weather, the streams were fed by a hot spring that prevented them from freezing in the winter, the number of homesteads held a large amount supplies to shore up his chosen domicile, the flat terrain made it easy to spot anyone approaching, and the slopes around hosted a great number of mature trees, more than Hanzo could go through in a lifetime.

 

And Hanzo had made great use of it.

 

Hanzo made two great circles over the depression, eyes peeled with any infrared signatures besides the cluster near its southern end. Then he brought it in lower, examining one homestead after another, following no set pattern but making sure not to skip any, looking for any sign of entry or disturbance or ransacking similar to his stash in Obihiro.

 

The depression’s isolation proved to be its greatest defense, and he found nothing disturbing whatsoever. He did bring the drone lowest of all over the colony, scrutinizing the outlines of its residents for anyone trying to lose their signature among them, but he found nothing.

 

There was no one here, and anyone else he would bring himself if they were following.

 

He traced out a route for the drone to follow automatically and set an alert to go off if it detected any more than two new infrared signals. He folded up and put away the solar panel in its hiding place and returned to his hovercycle, his paranoia still involved enough to make him approach it from a new direction, but it was rapidly diminishing now that he had mostly fulfilled his ritual. He hefted the cello case on his back once more but kept Storm Bow and his quiver where they were--he could drop the cello case and whip Storm Bow into position easily enough.

 

He got the hovercycle up and running and followed the same route as the drone, albeit with a little more winding to follow the narrow road that snaked between ridges. The streams that traversed the depression had carved out another entrance to the southeast, which was the way Hanzo usually came since it was a little closer to the coast, even though it meant picking his way past two portions of the road that had collapsed into the gully. They were ultimately fortuitous events, though--they had formed dams that helped block that entrance during the spring and summer when they caught two reservoirs of snowmelt, another layer of security that helped to soothe Hanzo’s heart.

 

When he came out of the pass, he cast an appreciative eye over the depression, taking in the sight of the familiar overgrown and chaotic fields with a sense of pleasure. True, it looked much better once the snow had fallen and almost smoothed over the landscape enough to make them look cared for and inhabited once more, but routine leant the scene a sense of reunion and restoration.

 

Simply put, it was good to be back.

 

But it was getting late, and there was much to do before he could rest.

 

He followed the road--though after so long the narrow and possibly privately-owned and constructed road was more a trail or a path--past a couple of the homesteads, heading for the one that was one over from being the closest to the center, one over from the most obvious choice. This route did not pass too close to the colony, which was all for the better; he did not need the temptation to check on it before he had assured his own safety.

 

Finally he arrived to a cluster of buildings on either side of the road, a large barn to the left, two houses and two garages to the right. The cache.

 

It looked properly abandoned--off to the side of the barn, a large open haymow that had been little more than a roof on stilts had collapsed, letting sheet metal and steel bar scatter among the brown grass. Shingles were missing on every roof and large strips of aluminum siding hung at crazy angles off every wall in sight, creaking audibly in the wind.

 

Never mind that the roofs had been patched from in the inside, or that the aluminum panels were stapled on top of more siding painted a deceptive dark brown to look like aged wooden framing from a distance. When he was especially paranoid and compared the homestead to actual abandoned structures, he knew that the whole scene was too well-put together to truly be abandoned--the real tipoff was how clean the solar panels on the roof were--but he had to trust far more in isolation rather than concealment anyway, and a last-ditch effort to convince people to pass on by was better than no effort at all.

 

He brought the hovercycle around the houses and before the smaller of the garages, the one meant for vehicles rather than farm equipment. He powered it down but left it hovering for a moment, unlocking the simple single-panel door and lifting it up, casting pale evening light over a couple stacks of toolboxes and storage bins. He pushed the hovercycle in and let it settle on the ground, glancing with satisfaction at the battery icon before it disappeared. He would not need to direct too much power to it to get it fully charged--but that could wait.

 

He checked the power display on the solar panels’ fusebox before he left, nodding to himself with no small amount of relief to see it fully operational. He shrugged off the cello case and laid it next to the hovercycle--he only kept Storm Bow and his quiver so as to be as light as possible on his feet while he checked the homestead. He left the garage door open--it was exposed, but also easy to get to.

 

He made a quick but thorough inspection of the homestead, looping around the other garage and both homes, carefully watching for any disturbance, any sign of forced entry, any sign of trip wires or any other trap, before wading through the grass on the road and doing much the same with the barn and even checking underneath the collapsed haymow for a spy or spying device.

 

Nothing.

 

Satisfied by the combination of a lack of infrared signals and any sign of entry, Hanzo went back to the garages to fetch his things, unstrapping his personal suitcase and the subsystem from the hovercycle and shouldering his cello case. He marched around the side of the eastern house and unlocked two heavy wooden sliding panels there, sliding one back to reveal a glass-paneled door behind which he also unlocked and swung open. He stood still for a moment, breathing in the familiar stale air.

 

“ _Tadaima,_ ” he murmured.

 

He stepped onto a pad and looked around the small living area, a small, low table set before a bureau and old, antiquated flatscreen TV and entertainment system that had not been touched in years. Set against the opposite wall was the sheet-covered outline of an upright piano. Light-colored wood boards framed faded but intricately patterned wallpaper behind, and a single round post-modern lamp hung from the ceiling. Just beyond was the modest kitchen with bare faux-marble counters and polished pine cabinets with a hallway leading away to the bedrooms, bathroom, and basement.

 

It was a modest dwelling meant for a single family, with two bedrooms and one bathroom; a far cry from Shimada Castle, that was certain, but it was more than enough, especially combined with the other identical house. Plus, it had solar panels that provided limited power, a pump for a well to provide drinking and bathing water, and a functioning septic tank, though Hanzo lived in fear of the latter’s inevitable demise.

 

This place had been a supremely lucky find.

 

Hanzo set the suitcases on the floor and shrugged off the cello case before sliding the storm panels closed, plunging the whole scene into darkness. He took out the control pad and checked to see how the drone was doing, but it had neither lost power nor found anything amiss. The automatic pilot did advise flying somewhat higher--the clouds were beginning to roll in, and this would be the last chance to charge the batteries before nightfall. Hanzo allowed it--flying higher would diminish the scanning resolution, but every drop of power counted, though he did shake himself a little--it was not December yet. One advantage of coming so early in the year was that there were more hours of daylight--he need not get _too_ deep into the rationing mindset just yet.

 

He felt on the wall for the switch, and flipped on the light as a way of testing the solar panels. The ceiling light glowed, throwing gentle light over the room. Relieved, he knelt by the subsystem, put in his security code and opened the case. It immediately spoke.

 

“Agent Shimada, this is Athena. I am directly interfacing with the subsystem. Have you arrived at your destination?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips, but there was no point in hiding the truth. Still--revealing the position of a cache, of _this_ cache particularly, felt wrong.

 

He powered through it.

 

“Yes, Athena,” he said softly, taking out the spyders and laying them on the floor.

 

“With your permission, I would like to inspect it,” Athena said briskly. Hanzo shook his head slightly, imagining how she would react if he brought the subsystem all this way only to renege on his promise to Winston and Genji. It was--a fairly amusing thought, actually, in its contrariness, but he nodded and said, “Of course. Please let me know if you find anything.”

 

“Acknowledged.”

 

The spyders sprang to life, each of them turning in place as they regarded the room before moving off in all directions, a pair to map out the living area, a pair to the kitchen, and the last pair disappearing down the hallway. Hanzo shook his head but stayed where he was--normally he would search the house himself, but now that he had an--an assistant, he supposed he could try to plan out what he needed to do before he switched out his feet and settled in for the next three or four days.

 

There would be hardly any outdoor preparation--his inspection had revealed that everything was still tied down and fortified to stand alone against the weather in his absence. He would need to turn on the pump while there was still daylight to power it and fill one or two of the containers with water to last through the typhoons. If the storms had been particularly bad, he might have taken his sleeping supplies into the basement, but there would be no need since the typhoons were comparatively weak. He would leave the drone to patrol until it alerted him that it could no longer cope with the winds, which would probably be sometime in the early morning, then he would bring it in.

 

He took out the comm and looked at the time. Really, there was not much to do. He should have plenty of time to check on the colony and be back before dark.

 

He waited until the spyders finished their sweep. They did not reappear, but the earpiece chimed in his ear as Athena reported back. “No sign of intrusion, no mold, no water damage, no electrical faults, no burst pipes,” she listed off, making him raise an eyebrow. She had been unexpectedly thorough. “I found the pump and a water container in the basement--the spyders are filling it now.” His eyebrow climbed higher. Another item crossed off his list--the container was one hundred fifty liters, way more than enough to get through the storm. “However, one can supervise that--with your permission, I’d like to run a sweep of the surrounding area to search for any nearby debris that might pose a danger in high winds, among other things.”

 

She was being very thorough indeed.

 

“Of course,” said Hanzo, not able to hide some of his wariness. This felt--extremely intrusive, but there was nothing for it--except possibly distancing himself so he was not in the middle of a flurry of spyders sniffing out his secrets. He stood. “I must check on a nearby homestead in the meantime.”

 

“All right,” said Athena after a brief pause. “You will have your comm with you?”

 

Hanzo suppressed a snort as he shouldered Storm Bow and his quiver and opened the door. “Of course.”

 

He waited for five of the spyders to scuttle past him before he locked the door and slid the panels closed and locked them as well, the wind tugging at his ponytail and clothes all the while. He was caught by the realization that soon he would be able to return to his habitual _gi, hakama,_ and hair ribbon, which was a cheering thought despite Athena’s determination to lay everything around him bare.

 

He headed south, following the road for the most part but choosing to wade through the dense, brown fields as a shortcut a couple of times, listening to the brush crunch underfoot as the wind rattled through the late autumn detritus.

 

A sudden movement off to his left revealed one of the colony’s denizens in a flash: a handsome tabby with black spots on their grey coat, already fluffy with winter thickness. The cat rose up momentarily on their hind legs when it spotted Hanzo, and even at a distance their vivid yellow eyes were easily seen--then it was off like a shot, disappearing into the underbrush in a split second.

 

Not one of Hanzo’s favorites, then.

 

He continued on, and the colony came into view from behind the shelter of a row of apple trees: a long, low barn that had once sheltered dozens of cattle, surrounded by a few supporting outbuildings and random farm machinery left where they had stood in the initial evacuation. Hanzo adjusted his course to approach more or less from upwind, giving the colony plenty of time to notice his scent.

 

It had a visible effect. About two dozen cats began scattering from wherever they had been lounging, darting across the ground in all directions. Most of them headed into the barn itself, the most secure place since Hanzo never entered it except as a last resort--the smell was suffocating, even in winter--another reason to approach from upwind.

 

Plus, his respect and deference for the colony’s shared territory had won him some tolerance from a few of its members.

 

Kuro was the first to appear this year, popping out of one the barn’s many entrances at a run, pausing for a moment to look around before his eyes settled on Hanzo and he came bounding over, silent as the shadow his solid black fur resembled. However, instead of coming right up to Hanzo, he stopped short about two meters away and immediately flopped over, turning away from Hanzo and looking everywhere except directly at him.

 

Hanzo smiled at the play of nonchalance--Kuro liked to play tough and aloof, but he was also curious, much as he hated to admit it. Hanzo jumped up to sit onto the remains of a short wooden fence that ringed the barn, the wood sunbleached and worn but still solid under his weight, as he waited to see who else would come investigate.

 

The next to come was Rin, who came from around the corner of one of the outbuildings, chirping as she came, her orange fur already beginning to fade with age. She did not come as close as Kuro--almost none of the feral cats did for at least a few days after Hanzo’s arrival.  Instead, she opted to hop up on the fence a good distance away and fold her feet snugly under her fluff and stare, poised to flee if Hanzo made the slightest threatening move.

 

A few others came in the next ten or fifteen minutes: Kotaro, Momo and Mimi, Sora. Soon Hanzo was in the middle of a loose ring of feral cats, either stretched out on the ground or sitting in various elevated places on the fence or on the farm equipment scattered about, staring at Hanzo suspiciously and sniffing at him as best they could from a distance, trying to figure out why this strange animal seemed familiar.

 

Hanzo knew that domesticated cats would recognize their owners even after years of separation, but he was not these cats’ owner, which he supposed explained why they seemed to almost forget him entirely in the months, sometimes up to a year, between visits. He did not spend an excessive amount of time with them even when he was here--his training and hobbies often kept him away for days at a time.

 

Still, it was amusing to see the inquisitive and baffled looks as they vacillated between distrust and vague memories of who this creature might be--he had met almost all of them when they were kittens and thus far less cautious and far more willing to approach him, but his yearly schedule prevented him from meeting most of the colony’s brood. Cats usually did not have litters during the harsh winter--and if they did, they did not survive long enough for Hanzo to meet them--so he was limited to forming weak bonds with the few kittens born in the spring before he headed south in May.

 

Still, weak as it was, the bond usually proved enough that he could expect this lukewarm reception that would get a bit better in time.

 

If there was time, he reminded himself. If there was time.

 

He stayed with the welcoming committee for a few minutes longer to start getting them used to his smell and appearance, singing a low wordless tune almost under his breath to accustom them to his voice, as well as to wait for any stragglers. The cats ranged out all across the depression while hunting and helping to keep the vermin in the underbrush under control, for which Hanzo was eternally grateful. He had far more rat poison laid throughout his cache than most sane people were comfortable with, but mice and rats were his main enemy in maintaining the habitability of the buildings. Luckily, the cats, along with a healthy population of snakes and foxes, seemed to be keeping the vermin population well down--though the foxes also menaced the cats, but that was an inescapable fact of life for a feral cat colony in the abandoned wastelands.

 

But it meant that every year there would always be two or three cats missing from among the group that tolerated Hanzo.

 

This year seemed to have been kinder than most--the only one missing was Sakura, a gorgeous calico with black, brown, tan, and white splotches all over her coat with a smear of tan dividing her black face right down the middle. She also happened to be the friendliest feral cat Hanzo had encountered in the colony since he had come here, from the time she first approached him as a kitten without a trace of fear and in the three years since. She would even rub against his legs and accept a few scritches behind the ears on their first meeting, so her absence was especially apparent.

 

Hanzo frowned as the minutes passed with no sign of her--

 

\--but that was an inescapable fact of life.

 

After enough time had passed that two of the cats had tired of their inspection and wandered away, Hanzo slid off the fence onto the ground, moving slowly, though the movement was sudden enough to send four of the remaining cats retreating, taking up more secure spots at a greater distance. He set off to make a circuit of the colony, looking for holes in the buildings while also keeping an eye out for particularly sharp metal or plastic that may have dropped off the farm machinery. He did find and pick up a few rusted metal shavings surrounding a tractor and a board with nails sticking out of one side, but not much seemed to have happened here either since he was here last. Satisfied, he headed back to his cache, the sun slipping behind the ever thickening cloudbank and casting the depression into a deep gloom as he went.

 

He made it back before the gloom became impenetrable, but he cut it a bit close--his main reason to be indoors after dark was the possibility of brown bears in the area, which was also the main reason to have Storm Bow with him at all times.

 

He entered the living area of the house and slid the panels closed and locked them along with the door before he turned and prepared to make his way by feel--but he almost whipped Storm Bow off his shoulder when light illuminated the room. Luckily he saved himself some embarrassment, even if it was just a spyder witnessing it, when he spotted it by the electric camping light set in the middle of the low table. His earpiece chimed, and Athena came over the line.

 

“Welcome back, Agent Shimada,” she said warmly, and Hanzo only barely refrained from rolling his eyes--after all this time fearing discovery, it felt completely wrong for someone to be welcoming him into his own secret cache. “I found and brought up this lamp--I hope that was not presumptuous?”

 

“No,” he said at length. He did not necessarily need the light quite yet, but the LEDs and battery could run for several days continuously.

 

He sat on a low stool sitting by one side of the door, reaching down and twisting off first one foot, then the other and setting them into a small box next to him. He withdrew and briefly inspected another pair of feet that looked much the same, but the undersides had no connections for his crampons and were made of a spongy, springy material. He snapped them into place and waited a couple of moments for his prosthetics to run through the calibrations of these “casual” feet before he stood and moved through the kitchen and into the hall.

 

Four doors greeted him, and he opened one on the right to reveal a bedroom-turned-storeroom, with neat stacks of containers made of thick plastic gathered along all four walls as well as gathered in a squat pile in the center of the room. Two of them had fallen to the floor, but the lids had held firm. The sight of that was not distressing--Hanzo could expect a couple of earthquakes to shake up his careful organization, especially this close to a volcanically active region.

 

He lifted one container back to its spot, but the other happened to have what he needed and he carried it out to the kitchen, setting it down on the counter and opening it up to reveal cans and tins of food. He rummaged around the top layer and selected adzuki beans and miso-stewed mackerel. They were not the most appetizing of combinations, but together they were high in protein and vitamins and minerals, and Hanzo had an eye towards beginning his training diet despite being cut off from his gym across the road until after the typhoons has passed. Who knew when he would next be in a position of relatively low stress with plenty of protein and training equipment nearby?

 

After the meal he whiled away the rest of the evening by sweeping the sheets off the piano, getting out his tuning hammers, felt, and mutes, flipping open the lid and working on the strings therein. Hanzo was no piano technician by any stretch of the imagination, but he had heard the results of fine tuning on many fine pianos--he could not approach that kind of mastery, but he could approximate it, though it took him much longer than a professional.

 

After that, he got the cello out of the other bedroom, where it was stowed in the corner in a generic box since its case was employed elsewhere. Tuning it up was a much easier job than the piano, but by the time the strings were singing the appropriate notes, he felt fatigue catching up to him despite the relatively early hour--it was barely past 2000.

 

Then again, it had been a long day preceded by many more longer days--plus the drone would need to be brought in earlier in the morning rather than later.

 

He grabbed his toiletries bag and headed into the basement to prepare for bed. When he returned with teeth brushed and hair combed out, he got blankets wrapped securely in plastic out of one of the bedrooms--and began laying them out in the main living area. It was--a tradition, of sorts, to sleep out in the main living area during a typhoon, even though it hardly mattered where he slept, here or elsewhere.

 

Athena chimed in his ear right as he was looking for any sign of moths in the thick wool fabric. “Agent Shimada? I have completed my scan of the--homestead--and I have found nothing that might pose a danger during the storm. The spyders have taken up positions around all the buildings in the area. You can refer to your comm for their exact locations.”

 

“I see. Thank you,” he said, paying half-attention as he arranged and smoothed out the blankets into something faintly resembling a traditional futon, though with far less padding than most people would accept.

 

“I have also analyzed the amount of electric power available. I estimate that the solar panels will generate a minimum of 300 watts during the typhoons--that is a conservative estimate during the thickest cloud cover.” Hanzo shook his head at the unnecessary lengths she was going to and opened his mouth to tell her not to bother, but she barrelled on as though she expected an interruption. “Thus there should be plenty of power to keep the spyders charged, and I have located outlets where they may do so. The subsystem, however, will not be chargeable until after the storms pass--and it may monopolize power consumption whenever it does need charging.”

 

Hanzo shook his head--Athena was likely erring on the side of caution. The former owners of the homestead had been extremely wise and wired together every building in the homestead into a single unit, combining all the panels on their roofs together, but even so three hundred watts was only about one-fifth of what the panels generated even in the depths of winter. During daylight hours, Hanzo could usually count on just enough power to keep, say, the lone portable heater running, three times more than necessary for an average computer system. However, Athena _was_ correct in that it would be a large drain--Hanzo would not be able to charge it and run the heater at the same time, for example, but there were other methods both to keep warm and supplement the panels.

 

“There are windmills stored in the other house,” he said as he moved around the room tidying up a little so he would not trip over anything when the drone called to be brought in. “They cannot be assembled until after the storm, but they usually contribute a great deal of power.”

 

“Ah!” said Athena, with the air of someone nodding their head vigorously--though _how_ she managed to convey that was beyond Hanzo. “They will be a valuable resource, then. I am sure you have other uses for the power.”

 

Hanzo shrugged slightly as he lay out a warm winter _gi_ and _hakama_ for the next day. “Not many.”

 

“Hmm,” said Athena dubiously, though what she could suspect, Hanzo could not imagine. It was true--between the drones, the power tools, and the tablets full of books, movies, and sheet music, he usually had power to spare. Even in December and January there was at least one perfect alignment of sun and wind to power the water heater for a few hours, and that was by far the single greatest source of power consumption until the sunlight strengthened again in the spring. He would be able to make do as he always had before.

 

“At any rate,” she continued, “it appears that we will have everything well in hand, during the storm and after. Everyone will be quite relieved to know it.”

 

Hanzo paused. Everyone? He snuck a look at the subsystem, though he hardly knew why. “Are--what exactly are you reporting to ‘everyone’?”

 

“Only that you are safe, Agent Shimada,” she said reassuringly. “They have been pestering me for more details, but I know you value your privacy. Winston and Agents McCree and Genji know your exact location and have been able to glean more information from that, of course, but otherwise I have only informed them and the others that your shelter is indeed more than adequate to survive the storm. Agents Mei, Lúcio, and Soldier: 76 were especially anxious to know. You may wish to send them personal messages to reassure them.”

 

Hanzo was now openly staring at the subsystem, despite Athena talking through the earpiece. “I--” he began uncertainly, “I am sure your report will be reassuring enough.”

 

On his belt, his comm vibrated.

 

“Apparently not,” Athena said sardonically, though with a distinctly amused tone. “That’s all of them calling now.”

 

_All of them?_

 

Hanzo could hardly bring himself to take out the comm to answer the call--and it was a _video_ call--but he positioned himself to show only the blandest patch of wall behind him and answered after a few deep breaths to center himself.

 

He had _never_ expected to have to do anything like this. Especially _here._

 

He prodded at the comm’s screen, and a fairly chaotic scene appeared. The view was wobbling, but it was clear the cowboy was holding his comm out at arm’s length while at least two people were scrambling to get into its view--Agent Lúcio and--and _Agent Tracer_ by the look of it, though he hardly knew why _she_ would want to be included. They looked almost as if they were kneeling, peering along the cowboy’s arms as he gripped his comm in both hands. Already in place behind the cowboy and looking over each shoulder were Agent Mei and Dr. Ziegler.

 

Hanzo felt his jaw loosen somewhat with shock, but he caught it before his mouth could fall open. Instead, he cleared his throat self-consciously under the unexpected scrutiny. “Greetings,” he murmured, trying to keep his voice from being too loud out of sheer discomfort.

 

“Heya, Agent Shimada,” said the cowboy, hatless with his dark hair framing his small smile. “I, uh--sorry for the crowd--” Agent Lúcio, Mei, and Tracer instantly began waving with great enthusiasm, “but I made the mistake of sayin’ I was about t’check in with you, and, um--”

 

“Hey, man, how’s it going?” exclaimed Agent Lúcio, leaning in and blocking the frame with half his face, as though he was examining Hanzo at close range. “You doing okay? No one following you?”

 

“No one, as far as I can determine,” Hanzo said slowly, unsure if he should treat this as the report the cowboy had probably meant the call to be.

 

“See?! You shoulda just come back with us!” said Agent Lúcio sourly as he moved back. Agent Mei was nodding in agreement--along with Dr. Ziegler and Agent Tracer, Hanzo saw with a slightly furrowed brow. “There’s no reason for you to be out there in a hurricane!”

 

“I--” started Hanzo.

 

“Megi will be there around 5AM tomorrow!” said Agent Mei, clasping the cowboy’s shoulder and squeezing it, though distractedly, as if she did not even notice the nervous gesture. “Is that enough time for you to get ready?”

 

“I am--”

 

“What about power?” blurted Agent Tracer, one of her hands draped over her chronal accelerator and a deep frown curving down the corners of her face. “Athena and Winston--and _McCree_ \--” She smacked the cowboy on the arm, shaking the camera view, “--won’t tell us where you’re shored up! Will you be able to, to, you know, call us if something happens or keep Athena charged so _she_ can?”

 

Agent Mei and Agent Lúcio’s concern Hanzo could understand, given what he had observed of them--but Agent Tracer’s was--unexpected, to put it mildly. Wildly out-of-character might be a more adequate term. He could not help but narrow his eyes, something that she seemed to pick up on, given the sudden reddening in her face. “Well--it’s just--” she said faintly, almost _guiltily._ “It’ll take thirteen hours to get there if something happens. That--that’s all.”

 

It was almost certainly _not_ all, but Hanzo was not exactly in a position to try to fathom Agent Tracer’s behavior--or perhaps he was. He caught her non-subtle glance at Agent Mei and an answering encouraging--or conspiratorial--smile.

 

Before he could try to analyze that, Dr. Ziegler spoke. “Athena tells us,” she said with oddly deliberate calm at odds with nearly everyone around her, “that you have access to a water supply, but she wouldn’t specify what kind. Are you sure it’s safe to drink?”

 

Hanzo nodded, relieved to have a fairly impersonal question to answer. “Yes, from a well. The groundwater here was noted for its purity before the Crisis, and I am in an area unaffected by the fighting. I chlorinate the water before using it as a precaution, but it does not seem to be strictly necessary.” The doctor nodded, but she was obviously skeptical, and Hanzo could guess that she was thinking of any number of non-microbial contaminants that would be unaffected by disinfectants. Hanzo had no means of testing for them, though, and he could guess that the spyders did not either or Athena’s proactive approach might already have settled the question.

 

“How’s your security?” came a gruff voice from off-screen. The cowboy rolled his eyes and turned the comm, showing a brief view of a large room with multiple long tables--a cafeteria?--before showing Agent Soldier: 76 sitting halfway down one of them, visor on, back unnaturally straight, and burly arms folded across his chest. He gave a brief minimal wave with one hand when the comm focused on him.

 

Hanzo struggled to contain the surprise and a slight, irrational sense of betrayal. If the sullen, professional, and by-the-book Soldier: 76 was participating in this foolish video call, surely that would imply that it was appropriate in some way. “I am secure,” he said, though he wondered if the old strike commander really did not know already. If even he was worrying about Hanzo’s safety--for whatever reason--perhaps Athena had been correct to say a personal reassurance was necessary.

 

Although perhaps the fact that the video call was happening at all was proof.

 

He cleared his throat and pondered what exactly he should say, settling on, “Athena and the security subsystem have helped immensely in that regard. There is no sign of pursuit nor of any nearby habitation, and the power situation is also favorable. Athena estimates that there will be enough for the spyders during the storm, and there will be plenty more after.”

 

Agent Soldier: 76 acknowledged each of his points with a nod. “Alright. Stay sharp out there--just because it feels isolated doesn’t mean someone can’t stumble across you.”

 

“Understood,” said Hanzo, thinking on the drone and its twin waiting in one of the garages. He had learned that lesson already.

 

“Alrighty, everyone get a word in? Anything else?” asked the cowboy, the camera tilting and spinning to show the cowboy grabbing his hat from somewhere and plunking it on his head as he stood. “Cuz this _was_ gonna be an actual check-in, and I don’ need an audience for that.” A chorus of _No_ and _I guess not_ followed by overlapping farewells rang out and as the cowboy was walking away he turned the comm to show the group clustered at the end of a cafeteria table all waving.

 

Then he moved the camera to show himself as he seemed to enter a wide hallway. The camera was fairly close to his face, and Hanzo managed to catch a couple of details that had escaped him until now: faint freckles dotted the cowboy’s nose and cheeks and an equally faint scar cut down over the right side of his lips, starting in his mustache and continuing almost straight down into his beard.

 

The cowboy’s dark eyes glanced down at him. “Sorry if that was a bit of a shock,” he said quietly, looking up again. “I was expectin’ t’pass along some messages was all.”

 

Hanzo furrowed his brow at the idea that the cowboy was expecting such a thing, and he almost forgot to say, “No apology is necessary.”

 

“Well, maybe,” said the cowboy, a little distracted as he stopped somewhere and squinted at something. “I know I wasn’ much for talkin’ when I was holed up in one of my--sorry, just a sec, this keypad’s givin’ me some trouble.” Barely audible clicking and beeping noises came over the commlink, and the cowboy frowned in irritation. “Damned old thing,” he muttered. “There we go!” A quiet _whoosh_ and the cowboy passed through a doorway into a darker room, the camera brightening the scene automatically to compensate. “Alright! So,” said the cowboy as he sat down.

 

To Hanzo’s shock, a bed was visible past the cowboy. It was neatly made, with the sheets stretched tight across the mattress as if in a hotel, but a familiar red cape was tossed carelessly across it.

 

Had the cowboy been talking to Hanzo from his own bedroom this whole time?

 

Hanzo did not exactly know how to feel about that.

 

“Everyone pretty much asked what I was gonna,” continued the cowboy, interrupting Hanzo’s thoughts, “so there’s really just one more thing. Obihiro not work out?”

 

“No,” said Hanzo shortly, out of lingering disappointment to lose a stash and the reminder that his every move was being recorded--though far more from the former than the latter. “The destination I had in mind had been discovered.”

 

The cowboy straightened. “By whom?”

 

Hanzo shrugged a little. “I do not know, but it was likely months ago. It has happened before.”

 

“I bet,” said the cowboy with a grimace. “Well, that’s too bad. You lose anything big?”

 

“Nothing beyond food and water. It is nothing.”

 

The cowboy shook his head. “Still pretty frustratin’ t’see all that hard work disappear, though,” he said knowingly. “I got some things buried around my old huntin’ grounds, too, but they get dug up and torn up by damned critters sometimes. Coyotes and pumas, mostly.”

 

Hanzo nodded. It appeared the cowboy was going to preserve the same tone as his reports in India.

 

Then he went a step farther.

 

“Well, that’s pretty much all, I think. I’ll check in tomorrow around 1600 your time or so--maybe a little later, that’s breakfast time. Although--” He looked up at the ceiling as if a sudden idea was occurring to him. “Since we’re on video, you wanna see some of the base? You got t’see the cafeteria, but that ain’ much. I bet Winston’d like t’see you and show you his lab at least. What d’you think?”

 

It took a moment for Hanzo to answer.

 

“What?” he could not help asking out of bewilderment.

 

This was something he never would have expected the cowboy to offer, no matter how secure the commlink supposedly was. Stories about comrades with dubious authenticity were one thing, but showing him Overwatch’s main base? True, Hanzo would have seen it if he had accepted Winston’s invitation, but--but he would have expected the cowboy to keep Hanzo in the dark as long as possible, regardless of what might have been or might happen.

 

Although--the cowboy _was_ talking to him in his bedroom at that very moment. It was hardly critical infrastructure or a restricted area, but he doubted that the cowboy would offer his personal space as an alternative or as misdirection. Hanzo would not have--he had moved to present as uncompromising a background as possible for this call, after all. The cowboy, on the other hand, sat with not only the bed clearly visible behind him, but with a riot of colorful posters and photographs pinned to the wall above it--far too personalized. It could all very well be a facade, of course, but--

 

The cowboy looked back down at him, and Hanzo hurriedly tried to hide his suspicion, but the cowboy thinned his lips at whatever he saw.

 

He seemed to waver on the edge of speech for a few moments before he finally said, “Yeah, it’s, uh--a little bit of a surprise, ain’ it? For me t’offer t’show you around.” He bit his lip as he looked down at Hanzo with a considering look and said, “I’m--I’m just tryin’ t’match Mei and Luz at this point.”

 

Hanzo tilted his head ever-so-slightly.

 

The cowboy chuckled, though his face was still serious. “Yeah, it’s just--I know you don’ trust me as far as you can throw me--and with good reason! So I know it’s gotta be confusin’, but--” The cowboy sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Seein’ how they both just sorta-- _listened_ t’Genji kinda reminded me of how I shoulda been. _I_ shoulda listened t’Genji instead of goin’ off cockamammy wild and fuckin’ everything up.”

 

The cowboy looked over his shoulder, towards the photos pinned among the posters on the wall. They were too small to be resolved on the comm’s screen, but Hanzo could guess what they showed when the cowboy continued, “I’ve known him a hell of a lot longer, too, so that just goes t’show how fucked up that was. They both just--” He waved his metal hand in the air and blew out a puff of air. “So, uh. They’ve set the gold standard, and I gotta catch up is all.”

 

Hanzo listened with a growing sense of agitation. “That is--” he said, blurted, really, but he did not care. “That is unnecessary, Agent McCree.”

 

“What, bein’ decent?” asked the cowboy with a slightly bitter smile. “Sayin’ I’ll do something and actually doing it?”

 

Hanzo tried not to snort, but it was a close thing. “Agents Mei and Lúcio are--” he searched for something less insulting than _naïve,_ “--idealistic. They do not show an appropriate level of caution or wariness.”

 

The cowboy’s smile grew wider and slightly less bitter. “Yeah, but there’s a place for a little idealism. Could use some more myself these days t’get to that happy medium.” Hanzo pursed his lips, and the cowboy’s smile faded a little. “Look, Agent Shimada--” he paused and frowned, looking like he was thinking hard. “Did--did you take a look at Mei’s file? Both hers and Zenyatta’s should be on your new comm.”

 

Hanzo had not even bothered to check--come to think of it, he had not even read the protocols on Agent D.Va’s MEKA, either. Chagrined, he shook his head slightly.

 

The cowboy sat back slightly. “Well, when you do, you’ll see that Mei is one sharp cookie. I’d say she’s probably one of the bigger geniuses alive today, and you’ll see why when you see that weapon system she came up with-- _on the fly,_ by the way--and she’s been through some tough shit, includin’ things that you won’ find in her file. I know I said t’keep an eye on her if we’d ended up goin’ through with that raid, but that was just because she was out of practice. She came t’Overwatch from the PLA, and she saw plenty of action there, but you’d never know it. She’s just one of those people who--who don’ just _deal_ with it, per se, but manage t’keep a little more optimism around as they do.

 

“Luz is the same way. I know you got his file, but remember he’s a goddamned revolutionary--sure, he’s gotta be idealistic, but he’s a _successful_ revolutionary, so he’s gotta be at least a little pragmatic, too, right?” Hanzo’s lips remained firmly pursed, and the cowboy sighed. “Point is--they’ve both got brains and they both got eyes. They--they could’ve decided t’do somethin’ else entirely when they met you, but they didn’.

 

“Don’ just--dismiss kindness like that,” said the cowboy hesitantly, looking off to one side again. “It’s--it’s not something t’just drop, y’know? Especially since--” the cowboy trailed off for a long moment, his eyes fixed off into the distance. He took another deep breath. “Especially since it comes from better people than--than us.”

 

Hanzo set his jaw. There was that self-deprecation again, where the cowboy sought to somehow set himself on the same level as Hanzo, as though he, too, had led a bloodsoaked empire while a twisted and illusionary sense of honor festered in his heart, ultimately leading him down the path of a kinslayer. _That_ was what the cowboy supposedly equaled--and what Agents Mei and Lúcio and the rest of Overwatch were tolerating.

 

What Genji was tolerating.

 

As silence descended and then dragged on, Hanzo cast about for something to say, something to dismiss the cowboy’s words with an appropriate amount of deference, but it might be nigh impossible to strike such a balance--it was just so absurd that the cowboy should show nothing but suspicion and derision--completely merited suspicion and derision--only to decide to back off from that position in favor of--of--

 

Forgiveness, he supposed.

 

But if he were truly Hanzo’s equal in crime, he would know that some things were beyond forgiveness. For a while, it seemed like he _did_ understand that, and it had been a perverse kind of comfort--that he had been Genji’s friend for so long and come from the same kind of world and had _known_ the depth of Hanzo’s crime and Genji’s suffering and had reacted completely appropriately when even Genji himself had not. It had been a perverse kind of comfort because surely the cowboy would eventually remind Genji of the magnitude of the crime and the only just reward, would surely convince all of the deluded fools around him of the same, would surely--

 

But instead, here he was, distancing himself from his earlier behavior and claiming to emulate a “better” kind of person, the kind who would allow his crime to stand.

 

Unfortunate. Very unfortunate.

 

Hanzo could only hope it was all an act.

 

That was Hanzo’s only hope.

 

With that hope in mind, Hanzo only nodded and murmured, “I will--I will not disrespect their kindness.”

 

The cowboy said nothing for a few moments, looking down at his comm with a face that was--

 

\--sad.

 

Hanzo could hardly bear it, but then, finally, the cowboy said with a short laugh, “Well, that got a lot more serious than I wanted.”

 

The tension was not broken, but it was a way out, which was almost better.

 

“These check-ins won’t all be like this, ha,” the cowboy continued. If the last word was any attempt at humor, it fell thoroughly flat.

 

Hanzo could only manage a tight-lipped nod. The cowboy opened his mouth, snapped it shut, before he simply muttered, “Good night, Agent Shimada. We’ll be in touch,” and abruptly ended the call.

 

All Hanzo wanted to do was set the comm down in some corner and forget about it, but he immediately saw a message had arrived in the secure messenger app. Nevertheless, he set the comm facedown on the low table before him for a moment, breathing deep through the intensely unsettled feeling in his chest.

 

It had to be an act.

 

It had to be. The cowboy was planning some sort of maneuver that either required Hanzo’s trust or merely the appearance of the cowboy’s good will to throw off suspicion. It was entirely in keeping with his background in black ops and his initial treatment of Hanzo. Entirely in line.

 

After a few minutes, Hanzo braved the trepidation over what else he might hear from Overwatch and picked up the comm once more, bringing up the message.

 

> >From: Agent Lúcio
> 
> Hey!!!!!!! Look who I found!!!!!

 

Attached was a selfie of a smiling Agent Lúcio, his arm thrown over the chrome shoulders and his face pressed firmly against the side of the silver-and-green visor of Genji.

 

Hanzo plucked his earpiece out, shoved it into the comm, dropped it on the table with a bang, reached over and turned off the lamp, and burrowed into the blankets of his haphazard bed.

 

Sleep came slowly, but not before the phantom pain returned, arcing up and down his non-existent limbs like lightning and twisting the invisible muscle into knots as the hours ticked past.

 

Even so, the insistent beeping of the control pad came to him through a thick fog of slumber rather than simple fatigue, jolting him awake as he blinked all around him, momentarily thrown by his surroundings before he remembered where he was and why. He crawled out of the blankets to the box containing his work feet, twisting off his casual pair while staring out into space and listening to the rising howl of the wind outside.

 

When he stood and got the control pad out of his cello case, he took a moment to marvel that the drone had managed to last so long, long enough to make him wonder if Typhoon Megi had turned to one side or the other and delayed its landfall a bit--but such wonderings were irrelevant. He unlocked the door and the panels beyond and walked out into the windstorm. The wind was now howling and moaning through the eaves of the houses and garages, strong enough to force Hanzo to shield his eyes as he closed the panels behind him, but it was not yet raining, which was merciful of the storm.

 

He headed for a space behind the garages where the grass and undergrowth was shorter than most other places. He directed the drone to land there, and it appeared out of the darkness in short order, flying into the wind as best it could as it dropped to the earth. Hanzo rushed forward and got a tight grip on the fuselage as soon as he could--the drone’s wings tried to catch the wind, but he managed to get the drone into the same garage as the hovercycle with only a nominal struggle against the wind.

 

If there was anything to say for the typhoon, it was that the warmth of the tropical cyclone made the wind far less biting than it otherwise would have been--but still, the short time outside made his cheeks and lips feel chafed with windburn when he stumbled back into the house and locked himself in. Hanzo was switching out his feet again when the muffled voice of Athena came out of the comm.

 

“Agent Shimada?”

 

“Yes?” he said tiredly as he waited for his casual feet to finish calibrating so he could crawl back into his blankets.

 

“I observed the drone.”

 

“Ah.” Hanzo could easily see where this was going, and he struggled with the obtuse, sleep deprivation-fueled desire to snap at her to leave at least _some_ of his defenses to him, but if she knew, Overwatch knew, and that was all that mattered. Still, his voice held an edge as he said, “What do you require to operate them?”

 

She did not reply for a few moments. “A holoethernet connection between the comm and the control pad,” she said with hesitation. “However, if you preferred that I not--”

 

“A moment, please,” said Hanzo, lighting the lamp to drive back the darkness as he went in search of the cable.

 

Athena said nothing more beyond a “Connection confirmed,” when he hooked up the comm with the control pad, and he did not invite any more conversation, instead crawling back into bed without even bothering to brush out his hair, even though the storm had doubtless left it in tangles. There would be time enough in the morning, and in the days to come.

 

The next three days were spent in a haze of wasted time. There was little to differentiate between the day- and nighttime hours and thus little to rouse Hanzo from the bouts of sleep he managed, never waking up refreshed but not feeling quite tired either.

 

The only indication of a regular rhythm came from Athena and Overwatch, though much more from the latter. When he woke sometime in the “morning”, Athena was ready with a report on all six spyders and how they were faring. In the early stages of the storm, they had managed to keep a circuit of the homestead despite the sheets of rain that finally came pouring “down”--it was more a sideways motion--but as the winds intensified they were forced to hunker down and keep watch as best they could from where they were, which hardly bothered Hanzo--anything that forced a spyder into hiding was likely to do the same to potential attackers.

 

Overwatch, meanwhile, provided a schedule of its own, but on Gibraltar time eight hours behind Hanzo, and it needled him when he noticed that with the lack of natural cues through the heavy storm doors and shutters of the house, he was drifting to match that offset--a flurry of text messages would arrive around 1400, when it seemed the Gibraltar base was waking up. They were all just short messages asking after him, and he replied with equally brief assurances--though he struggled to find slightly different ways to reply in case they compared notes.

 

Despite his multiple assurances that he was fine, the texts were followed by Overwatch’s check-in about an hour later--and it _was_ Overwatch rather than the cowboy. He wished he was more surprised on the first day when the comm chimed with an incoming call and it turned out to be yet another _video_ call.

 

“H-hey Agent Shimada,” said the cowboy. Winston was the only one behind him this time--there was no room for anyone else. Agents Lúcio and Mei were trying to crowd in from one side while Agent D.Va’s flat look pierced him from the other as she slowly chewed on something. “Sorry I’m a little early, but Winston thought now was as good a time as any.”

 

“Agent Shimada!” boomed Winston, adjusting his glasses and peering at Hanzo in scrutinization. “How’re you holding up?”

 

“Very well.”

 

“I can hear the wind!” the gorilla said with sudden anxiety, his yellow eyes widening. “Is that normal? Should it be so loud?”

 

Hanzo had tuned the omnipresent howling of the wind out hours ago, along with the creaks and protests coming from the house’s frame and roof as it endured the onslaught. “Perfectly normal, Commander Winston,” he said briskly. “Think nothing of it.”

 

Agent Mei poked her head further into the frame. “Megi’s weakening pretty steadily,” she reported, trying to sound reassuring. “Its eyewall is passing over land--right over that weather station, actually, so I’m getting fantastic amounts of data!--but that means it’s pretty close to you, so you’re getting almost the worst of it. Don’t go outside for anything!”

 

“I will not,” he said, not adding that if he tried to open the storm panels, the wind would blow the door off its hinges as it had once before.

 

“And--right now--right now it looks like Chaba’s eyewall will go right over central Hokkaido, bringing the very strongest winds,” she said with no small amount of worry. “The winds will die down for about half a day tomorrow, but it’s a trap! Don’t fall for it!”

 

“I have no intentions of going outside even then, Agent Mei,” he said resolutely. “I have not gone out into a typhoon for many years.” Six years, actually, for a job in Hong Kong that paid for a 3D printer all by itself.

 

He thought he saw a hint of suspicion in the cowboy’s eyes, as though he detected Hanzo’s thoughts, but he did not act on it if it was truly there. Instead, he cheerfully said, “Well, that’s good t'hear! Between Mei’s weather station and the spyders, we’re keepin' almost as close an eye on things as you, so don’ worry none!”

 

Winston cleared his throat. “One more thing, Agent Shimada,” he said, with a heaviness that put Hanzo on alert. “I thought I’d update you on Boa Vista. Athena and I have been working on it, but so far we haven’t been able to crack the data you retrieved.” Hanzo nodded, nonplussed that Winston would think Hanzo wanted to know. Once he had obtained and delivered his objective, it hardly mattered what happened to it. “It looks like a new kind of encryption method that has been developed in the last year or so--we think we’ll be able to work through it soonish, but maybe not for a few weeks.”

 

“I see,” said Hanzo.

 

“But you just focus on staying safe,” said the gorilla with a toothy grin that showed his fangs. “We’ll take care of everything else.”

 

The call ended shortly after, which had Hanzo sighing in relief. He had been half expecting the camera to suddenly turn to reveal Genji the entire time--but it was obvious it had been made while much of the team sat at breakfast in the cafeteria. Genji--Genji probably had no need for a cafeteria anymore.

 

The pain in his longgone left foot spiked at the thought.

 

For the rest of the day, Hanzo lazed about the house, sometimes changing rooms for a bare minimum of variety, but mostly staying in the main living area where he slept as well, sometimes drifting off as he lay reading text on one of his reading tablets or puzzled out a equation--it had taken the video call to remind him that he had internet access for once, and it was a special relief to add the RIMS’ app to his list of pastimes.

 

He spent a good amount of time breaking in the piano and cello, getting the coordination back in his fingers after months and months away. His fingers itched for similar practice with Storm Bow, but he could do nothing about that until he could get to his gym across the road, but the notes and chords spilling out of the piano and slipping off the cello’s strings were often work enough, though he had to stop after only a couple of hours the first day to recover from the strain.

 

And he finally broke into the sake from Niigata. It was necessary to make him sleep when even the normally comforting white noise of the wind and rain outside was unable to overpower the phantom pain.

 

The second and third days were repeats of the first, with sleep, Athena, Overwatch, and Hanzo passing through much of the same dance moves, with the rising and falling howling wind providing the tempo. The cowboy and Agents Mei and Lúcio appeared once more in a video call, accompanied this time by Agent Torbjörn and half of Agent Soldier: 76’s arm.

 

“Aha, there he is,” said the engineer. He waved at the camera with a slight smile. “Still not done, so don’t ask.” Hanzo had not planned to--but the question _had_ been at the forefront of his mind.

 

Agent Mei provided him with another forecast which did not differ from the day before, but Chaba was hardly any stronger than Megi, so even if the eyewall passed directly over him, Hanzo did not feel much trepidation.

 

And indeed, hours after the call ended, an eerie quiet seeped into the house while Hanzo was browsing his comm. The almost instant cessation of the wind was as startling as a bomb going off, and he could not help looking up even though he knew immediately what was happening.

 

He could not help a quick peek outside--he had never been inside the eye of a cyclone before.

 

Ignoring the alarms going off in his head, he quickly unlocked the door and the panels and slid them open. The sun greeted him, albeit through a thin layer of clouds that one might see drifting across the sky on any normal day. But beyond them was a roiling, towering cloudbank that Hanzo had only seen in textbooks and magazines--the solid-looking, curving wall that was the main powerhouse and engine of a storm hundreds of kilometers across.

 

Hanzo only allowed himself a minute or so of observation before he retreated back behind the solid wood of the storm panels. He would not risk being as surprised by the return of the storm as he was by its departure.

 

The other side of the eyewall did not come for a few minutes more, but the sudden rise of the wind as it lashed at the house only justified his caution.

 

And so it went, for another day and a half, with Overwatch beginning to almost incessantly check in as the tailend of the storm approached, with Agent Mei especially warning him to remain indoors even if the wind began to die down, fearful that a nearby high pressure front might push the typhoon backwards. Hanzo _was_ beginning to feel the strain of so much time indoors, but snowstorms had forced him to stay put for longer periods than this. There was no need for her concern--but it was there, and Hanzo could only accommodate it.

 

If nothing else, the three days had provided ample time to get back into the swing of his musical training--he sounded about as good now as he ever had, though he was still lagging a little on some of the faster or more complex pieces he had practiced, but many of them had come back to him without the need of sheet music, which was the bigger source of satisfaction, anyway--it was pleasing to be able to belt out entire movements without once looking at the tablet set on the music stand.

 

Chaba lasted well into evening of the last day, long enough that Hanzo had drunk himself to sleep with the last of the Niigata sake. He did not wake up until late the next morning, and once more the silence came as a shock.

 

“The storm has passed, Agent Shimada,” announced Athena when he sat up, sending static electricity crackling through the blankets. “Typhoon Chaba has passed into the northern Pacific and the chance of its return is negligible.”

 

“Excellent,” said Hanzo groggily, reaching down to massage at the muscle just above his prosthetics to try to get ahead of the dull pain gathering beneath. “What time is it?”

 

“1022.”

 

Enough time to have a look at the damage before the check-in. Hanzo needed to know for his own purposes, of course, but he was sure that would be the main topic when Overwatch called in three or four hours.

 

Hanzo gulped down a breakfast of _kani-kamaboko_ and canned pineapples before he cleaned up in the basement, dispassionately washing his hair and wiping himself down with a washcloth and ignoring the iciness of the water as best he could. He was warmblooded, true, enough to not need a jacket despite the cold that permeated the house, but it was quite another matter when he was wet--it made him shiver like nothing else could. Thus, he dried off and dressed as quickly as possible after his “bath”.

 

Back upstairs he clipped the comm to his belt, inserted his earpiece, and sat to switch out his feet with deft movements, eager to get on the move to stay ahead of the phantom pain. Now that he was moving around, he was tempted to take more of Dr. Ziegler’s nanites--but he decided against it, given the limited supply. The pain did not hinder him much once he was outside, anyway, strolling out into the wan sunshine with his quiver on his back and Storm Bow over his shoulder.

 

The scene looked fairly roughed up, though less than he expected. There were less tree branches and boughs scattered around for one, possibly owing to the lateness of the season--most of the leaves had already fallen and provided less for the wind to claw and rip at. The leaves themselves were scattered all around and piled up in large drifts anyplace the least bit sheltered, along with the few pine tree branches that had been blown down and carried all the way from the surrounding slopes.

 

Hanzo made a circuit of the houses, then the garages, but they had come through in fine shape. He could not tell if any of them had even had any more shingles removed, and the solar panels did not look cracked or on the verge of falling off. In fact, they looked almost new from the rough scouring of wind and rain, blasting every piece of dirt and grime off with ruthless efficiency.

 

Hanzo crossed the road and found much the same of the barn, though there were several new dents in its broadside to join the dozens of older ones. There was very little other damage, and Hanzo began to smile slightly at his good fortune.

 

Even the chiming in his ear to announce an incoming call could not dampen it, especially since it was an audio call.

 

“Agent Shimada.”

 

“Hello, Hanzo.”

 

Genji.

 

He did not seize up, and he certainly did not trip, but he was glad no one was around to dispute that--unless a spyder happened to be watching. He cast his eyes about as he forced himself to reply in a tolerably deferential tone.

 

“Hello.”

 

“I hear the storm’s passed,” said Genji with no small amount of good humor. Hanzo could not help an upwelling of mixed emotion at the sound of it. “I didn’t want to call during it because everyone else was. I knew you’d have everything well in hand, anyway.”

 

Hanzo nodded before he caught himself, still processing Genji’s far-too-exuberant tone. He began drifting towards the collapsed haymow at the barn’s side as he replied, “Yes. Everything is as it should be. There was no need for concern.”

 

“Yeah, but people worry about their teammates,” said Genji with a short laugh. Hanzo stiffened at the term, and an adjective came to mind that more adequately described Genji’s tone.

 

He sounded almost--

 

\--gleeful.

 

Hanzo’s chest constricted and his jaw clenched.

 

“Anyway, I’m sure you’re busy,” said Genji blithely. “But I wanted to ask you some things about Hokkaido, since you’re there. You mind talking while you work?”

 

“No,” said Hanzo through gritted teeth. This was all going in the wrong direction, and Hanzo did not like it one bit--Genji had no business blowing the irrational responses of his comrades out of proportion.

 

If Genji noticed, he ignored it. “Good, good. So--”

 

“Excuse me, agents,” broke in Athena. “Agent Shimada, the spyders are back on patrol, but I’d like to get the drones in the air as soon as possible. It will make inspection of the area go much faster.”

 

“You have drones?” asked Genji with some surprise. “Really?”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo, managing to loosen his jaw somewhat. He returned quickly the way he came, going to the garage with his hovercycle first and unlocking and lifting the door. “Have you interfaced with both or just one, Athena?”

 

“Both,” said Athena. “There should be enough sunshine today to largely charge the second one. It won’t be necessary to plug it in first.” Hanzo grunted his reply as he carried out the drone. Athena took control of it almost the moment he set it on the ground--she did not even need that long a runway. The drone lifted in the air easily enough and rose above and beyond the barn.

 

Hanzo opened up the second garage to reveal the other drone stored fully assembled amid several orderly piles of wood, with saws, gouges, and carving tools arranged on hooks on the walls all around. He took a moment to oil the propellers before he set it out. It lifted off in as equally short order as the first while he lowered the door back into place.

 

Genji kept silent until the buzzing of the propellers faded into the distance. “So. Hokkaido.”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo, not moving. He tried to think of something else, something beyond a monosyllabic answer. “What--what do you wish to know?”

 

“Well, ‘why Hokkaido?’, first of all,” said Genji with a slight teasing edge--he was in a far better mood than Hanzo had witnessed in a long, long time. “I mean--seriously? Couldn’t you have found somewhere a little less abandoned?”

 

“It is an ideal place to take refuge,” said Hanzo slowly as he drifted back towards the barn.

 

“But there’s nobody there!” said Genji, a little indignantly. “What if something happened? You’re lucky a bear hasn’t eaten you or something!”

 

“I am prepared for that.”

 

Genji snorted. “Yeah, I bet. How many have you taken down so far?”

 

“One.”

 

There was a long silence. “You--” said Genji, obviously stunned. “You’re serious?”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo, unable to keep from a short answer this time. Why should it be so astonishing?

 

Genji muttered under his breath, but not so quietly that Hanzo did not understand. “Bears. He’s been fighting bears all this time.” Another voice answered him, soothing and low. The Omnic monk. Hanzo’s jaw clenched again. Genji spoke louder. “Well. You’re going to have to tell everyone about that--well, maybe not Angela, she’s a--”

 

“Agent Shimada,” said Athena, urgency in every syllable. “There is an intruder approaching from the south.”

 

Hanzo’s reaction was immediate.

 

He had been making to walk another circle around the barn, and he immediately darted to the nearest door, unlocking and shutting it behind him in a flash. His eyes passed over the equipment and targets around the room quickly as he pawed at his pockets, forgetting for a moment that he did not have the control pad. “Is the feed on the comm?”

 

“Yes,” said both Athena and Genji at the same time. Hanzo did not bother to think about that as he snatched the comm off his belt, crouching to make himself as small a target as possible as he brought up the screen.

 

A view of the southern mountain pass, the one that he usually came through, popped up. A small square appeared to highlight the unmistakable outline of a person making their way up the road. They were on foot, winding between the many potholes and cracks that marked the road.

 

“Zoom in, Athena,” said Genji urgently. The figure enlarged with a snap, and Hanzo’s blood ran cold.

 

She was dressed in a padded yet stylish jacket of muted purple. Even at this distance there was a faint glimmer of gold where an insignia or badge should be, but since the camera could reveal that detail, it could also easily resolve her face behind the clear visor she wore over her eyes.

 

Victor India. Symmetra.

 

“Vishkar,” Hanzo breathed.

 

He was a fool. He was a _fool._ He had lost everything he had built around him to his bottomless stupidity.

 

“Hanzo,” whispered Genji. “Hanzo, you have to get out of there. _Now._ Athena, sound the alarm, we leave in--”

 

“Wait,” interrupted Athena. “Look!”

 

Symmetra had seen the drone--she was looking right at it, her eyes narrowed. It was a startling image with the camera zoomed in.

 

She stopped, seemed to debate for a moment, then waved her hands in odd, dancelike motions. Before her appeared blue lines that almost instantly faded into two white bowl-like objects, one floating directly above the other, its purpose unclear.

 

Symmetra walked about four meters away from it, steadily, businesslike, paying no more attention to the drone. She stopped, hesitated--and with an abrupt yet graceful movement, she tore off her left arm--no, it was a bonewhite prosthetic. She withdrew it out of her jacket sleeve, the almost porcelain surface glittering in the morning sunshine.

 

She placed it carefully on the ground.

 

She turned and walked back to her strange apparatus--which was apparently nothing more than a simple chair. She sat on it and primly crossed one leg over the other before she looked up at the drone above once more, finding it easily even though it had circled around to keep her in sight.

 

She reached into a coat pocket, staring straight into the drone’s electronic eye--

 

\--and took out a pristine white flag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, guess who really, _really_ wanted to get to that ending but had already written 18,000 words AND had already missed their self-imposed deadline, so they just decided to do two chapters at once?
> 
> Go on. Guess.
> 
> (☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞
> 
> All joking aside though, I do want to address my inclusion of the Ainu in these two chapters.
> 
> I don't have the slightest connection to the Ainu people, but once I thought that Hanzo may go to Hokkaido, I decided to include them and their place in a post-Crisis world, and I found a lot of interesting information about them! The Ainu are a people who were among the first inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago, and their language has no known relation to any other in the world. Unfortunately, the Ainu language is "moribund" or critically endangered, so it is likely to die out within the next few years. I wanted to draw some attention to that, as well as imagine a future where it is revived. However, the resources I found are either dated or fairly scant, so if I have made any mistakes, such as grossly misrepresenting them in any way, please let me know and I'll be happy to rectify them!
> 
> If you'd like to take a look at some of the resources I find on Ainu language and culture, though, here are a couple that I found particularly interesting and useful: [UniLang's Ainu for Beginners](https://unilang.org/course.php?res=58) and this [Ainu-Japanese-English dictionary](https://archive.org/details/ainuenglishjapan00batcuoft) from 1905 that also has some interesting information about Ainu culture as it was at the beginning of the 20th century.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! I greatly appreciate it!!


	17. The Guests

Hanzo crept through the undergrowth, the damp tree litter underfoot hardly making a sound under his careful steps.

 

Storm Bow was at the ready, gripped tightly in his hands along with a sonic and a scatter arrow.

 

The slope was steep along here, plunging down to the valley floor and the stream that drained the depression. The sound of its rushing waters in the distance filtered through the dense trees, rising and falling at random as Hanzo made his way, sometimes muffled by glades of pines and conifers thick with green needles, sometimes unimpeded by the naked branches of the oaks and maples that stood bare in the weak autumn sunlight. At times the wind rustled through, disturbing the water drops that coated every surface in the aftermath of the typhoons, sending a spate of drizzle onto the forest floor.

 

Hanzo strained to hear through the quiet cacophony for any hint of footsteps as careful as his own.

 

He wore a dark green jacket festooned with pockets that was now mottled with wet patches where the trees had dripped on him in a laughable imitation of camouflage, but even an imitation was a boon as he circumvented the Vishkar agent waiting somewhere down below.

 

“The intruder is maintaining position,” Athena whispered in his ear.

 

The Vishkar agent had not moved since she had settled in her chair, and Athena’s continuous reports as the drone kept station above her meant that she had not established a jamming signal of any kind either, but that was little comfort--it would not be strictly necessary if a conglomerate of Vishkar’s size and resources aimed to capture him. If he was outmanned and outgunned, his only chance was evasion--but here he was, steadily working his way _toward_ the threat.

 

She was waiting about halfway through the valley that served as the main entrance to the depression. It was wider, flatter, and straighter than the mountain pass that led directly into Minamifurano, wide and flat enough for the farmers that once lived here to sandwich two more fields alongside the road that ran nearly five full kilometers with hardly a bend or curve before it joined the small highway that served the area. Theoretically it would be fairly simple to stay hidden among the trees clinging to the valley walls rising above its floor, pass by the Vishkar agent, and approach her from behind so that the valley entrance would be open for a possible retreat--but all that assumed that she was alone.

 

Hanzo was sure that she was _not,_ and that he would find himself surrounded as soon as her allies realized what he was attempting.

 

His grip on Storm Bow tightened. His jaw was set and his tread did not falter, but his eyes were narrowed and his lips pursed.

 

It did not matter what he believed would happen.

 

He had orders to follow.

 

“She’s _surrendering?!”_

 

Winston’s voice had been booming enough to make the earpiece crackle, but Hanzo had been far too concerned with the Vishkar agent on his doorstep to even wince, concentrating hard on the feed from the drone as he crouched on the floor of the barn. The camera had zoomed out, and Hanzo was scrutinizing the infrared for any hint or trace of anything that looked out of place.

 

“It’s a trick!” replied Genji sharply. “A diversion of some kind--the main force will be coming from somewhere else, over the mountains from the northwest or down the slopes from Tokachi--Hanzo, are you armed? You’ve got to evade them for at least thirteen hours before we can get there! We’re on the way, brother!”

 

“Agent Shimada,” said Winston with serious calm, “What is your situation? Is there any indication of imminent attack on your position?”

 

Hanzo had known in a flash what the gorilla was considering.

 

He had scowled, he had struggled, he had almost blurted out that there was and that he was evacuating immediately before literally running for the hills--

 

\--but instead, forcing down the almost overwhelming instinct to flee, he murmured, “Checking,” and swiftly passed from window to window in the cavernous barn. There were not many of them--most of the illumination was meant to come from artificial light or from simply throwing the doors of the main entrance open--but there were enough for Hanzo to crack open the storm shutters covering the glassless windows and survey the entire perimeter. There was no sign of any movement in any direction besides the gently rustling dead grass stretching off in every direction. No obvious figures, no mysterious furrows through the undergrowth, no miragelike flashes of disorienting and rapidly disappearing color to betray camouflage suits, no drones--besides his own, as it flew past overhead low enough for him to hear the buzz of its propellers--nothing.

 

“I appear to be secure,” he had finally whispered. “At the moment,” he could not help but add.

 

It took a moment for Winston to acknowledge him. “Alright,” he said, his voice bursting into the line as though he had switched from another one--the very edge of the first syllable had been cut off and he sounded agitated or ruffled. “Athena, report.”

 

“There are no infrared signatures in the intruder’s immediate vicinity,” she responded promptly, “Drone Alfa is keeping station. Drone Bravo is executing a search pattern centered on a random point to prevent observers from extrapolating control central. There is a mass of infrared signatures to the south clustered around Designated Site 6--I have inspected it to the best of my ability but cannot guarantee that no cloaked or camouflaged intruders are hiding among them.”

 

“If the cats are not scattering,” whispered Hanzo, “then there is no one there. They are not accustomed to humans or omnics.”

 

“Acknowledged,” replied Athena. “There is no sign of avoidant behaviors among their signatures.” Hanzo thought he could hear the buzzing of the drone pass overhead once again, and Athena soon added, “The second flyby reveals no anomalous infrared signatures in Agent Shimada’s vicinity.”

 

“Continue scanning,” ordered Winston. “See if you can get a quick look at the routes Genji mentioned, but don’t leave Agent Shimada uncovered. Agent Shimada?”

 

“Yes?” Hanzo ground out.

 

There was silence on the line for the exact length of a deep drawn breath, then Winston said heavily, “Your orders are to rendezvous with the intruder and determine her intentions.”

 

Hanzo scowled bitterly as he made visual contact with the Vishkar agent at last through a gap in the trees. She was at a distance of perhaps three hundred meters or so, below and slightly ahead of him. As far as he could tell from this distance, she had not moved a centimeter, a fact he confirmed with a pair of binoculars in a jacket pocket, glancing about him quickly before taking a closer look. Not only had she not moved from her chair, she was still holding the white flag straight up like a torch, as though her remaining arm was not growing tired from the strain. _That_ was suspicious--it had been nearly two hours since she had seen the drone and begun displaying her token of “surrender”.

 

Was she an Omnic in disguise? Or a hologram?

 

It was his job to find out, unfortunately.

 

He continued on his way, picking his way across the slope, zigzagging unpredictably up and down to make his trail, if any, as difficult to follow and to anticipate as possible. He made a point of traveling along the small streambeds he came across--there was still enough runoff from the typhoons draining from the summits to erase his footprints and scent. It was more a placebo to calm the adrenaline threatening to overtake him than anything, but it was slightly practical as well.

 

He passed the Vishkar agent and went another hundred meters down before he descended to the valley floor to make his approach. A small piece of good luck meant that she had stopped on a portion of road where the mountain forest ran almost uninterrupted from the summit to the stream emptying the depression. Only the road cut through it, so it should be easy to remain unseen--but again, only in theory.

 

But at the very least, Hanzo mused as he came to a large conifer, whoever was watching over the Vishkar agent had allowed him to reach a good candidate for a vantage point. He assessed his surroundings one last time, eyes sweeping over the surrounding brush and undergrowth and ground cover with no trust whatsoever, before he withdrew three spyders from his pockets.

 

“I am ready to make contact,” he muttered.

 

“Proceed,” replied Winston, the deliberate calm of his voice revealing his tension.

 

Hanzo crouched and silently placed each spyder on the ground. As the cordlike legs of the spyders emerged from their carapaces and they started scuttling through the ground cover, they made rustling and crackling noises that were thunderous in Hanzo’s ears.

 

It was enough to make him instantly abandon that point and hastily find some other tree to observe from. He found one easily enough, but it did nothing to soothe his nerves--he could still hear the spyders moving through the foliage as they fanned out. Only one would approach the Vishkar agent--the others would sniff around for anyone else, just as their siblings back at Hanzo’s cache were doing. If the subsystem or the comm lost contact with any of them, even for a moment, that would be Hanzo’s signal to abort and retreat.

 

A few breathless minutes passed by as Overwatch’s mouthpiece picked its way through the forest, until at last--

 

“Approaching target,” said Athena quietly. “Continuous audio.”

 

Hanzo immediately hooked Storm Bow over his shoulder and began scaling the tree, even as a burst of scratchy audio reverberated in his ear as the spyder pushed its way through the undergrowth. He listened with half an ear as he settled about halfway up the trunk where a convenient gap in the needles allowed him to observe what was happening. The smell of sap and moss filled his nostrils as the needles and the prickly, rough bark scraped at his clothing, Storm Bow, and quiver, but he was afforded a good view of the purple figure on the road below. He was at her seven or eight o’clock position. He straddled the branch like a horse, squeezing it securely with his thighs to free his arms and prepare Storm Bow to take a shot.

 

The scratching noises from the spyder continued for a few seconds more before it stepped out onto the cracked concrete of the road. The Vishkar agent did not react much as it appeared--it had doubled back to approach her head-on to disguise Hanzo’s whereabouts--she only lowered the flag so that it was propped upright in her lap. From this close, Hanzo could see how both the flag and her empty left sleeve fluttered in the wind.

 

The spyder approached her, a glint of silver against the rough concrete, giving the bone white prosthetic still laid out four meters in front of her a wide berth. Finally, when it was about two meters away, it stopped.

 

“This is private property. Public access is not allowed. Please state your business.” Hanzo shook his head slightly, both at the gambit of feigning ignorance and Athena’s flawless, authoritative Japanese. One did not hear Japanese with a Bantu accent all that often.

 

The Vishkar agent stirred slightly. “ _Watashi wa nihongo o hanasemasen_ ,” she said concisely. She spoke rapidly and clearly, despite her assertion. “Do you speak English?”

 

“Yes,” Athena answered. “This is--”

 

“I have come to negotiate my surrender to Overwatch,” interrupted the Vishkar agent, straightening slightly and flicking her white flag twice for emphasis. “I have important information regarding illegal use of Vishkar assets.”

 

Hanzo narrowed his eyes.

 

Athena did not miss a beat. “The term ‘Overwatch’ is not recognized,” she said. “This is private property. Public access is not allowed. Please state your business.”

 

The Vishkar agent sat silent for a few moments before she laid her white flag down in her lap and pulled something out of her coat pocket.

 

“Here is the symmetric-key algorithm necessary to access the data your agent retrieved from the Satellite Campus,” she said with a hint of impatience. Hanzo’s eyes widened and his jaw clenched. “It is encoded as a holo-DataGlyph.” She tossed something to the ground, but it was too small for Hanzo to see at this distance.

 

The spyder, after a moment’s hesitation, approached it. Hanzo took the opportunity to look around a bit and check the comm for any betraying glints or movements around him, but he could see nothing, even as the minutes went by.

 

The Vishkar agent had gone back to sitting motionless on her chair. It would be child’s play to take the shot--unless she had some other piece of Vishkar technology hidden on her person to generate a shield, of course. Her gesture of literally disarming herself did not reassure Hanzo at all.

 

His earpiece crackled again.

 

“State your conditions for surrender.”

 

It was Winston.

 

Hanzo immediately stiffened. He _believed_ her?!

 

The Vishkar agent uncrossed her legs and stood, back straight. “My conditions are as follows: my cooperation extends to investigating and resolving the illegal appropriation and misuse of Vishkar assets. I will not discuss any proprietary information that is uninvolved with this investigation. I will take no action or inaction detrimental to the legitimate operations of the Vishkar Corporation or its subsidiaries.” Her tone was clipped and official and brooked no room for argument--until--

 

She suddenly glanced behind her--not at Hanzo, but down the road. Hanzo tensed and immediately withdrew his comm to check the drone’s video feed, even as the Vishkar agent continued.

 

“I have taken a great risk to contact you,” she said, lowering her voice slightly. “I was only able because your agent retreated to an area where the risk of discovery is minimal. If I surrender, _you must not take me to your headquarters or any other Overwatch facility._ This initial contact must take place at a non-Overwatch site with equal or greater security. I have evidence of significant involvement in this matter by multiple private, public, and criminal organizations, some of which may be actively monitoring Overwatch facilities. I cannot risk exposure of any kind or the consequences may be--” Her hand jerked, as though to clasp her other hand, but she remembered herself after a moment. “The consequences would be severe,” she finished, standing tall and upright once more, her arm at her side.

 

There was silence for a few seconds. Hanzo frowned as he digested her story--he glanced down at the comm, but there was little to see besides himself--oh, how he missed his camouflage suit!--and the Vishkar agent. There was still no indication of any other intrusion, but that was of little comfort given his own successful infiltration.

 

“Stand by,” Winston finally said, addressing her, and then, after a quiet beep to let Hanzo know that he had switched to a private channel, “Agent Shimada, continue to monitor her,” ordered Winston with a distracted air. “The key she gave us appears to be genuine. Athena’s working through the Campus data as quickly as she can to see if any of it corroborates or contradicts what she’s saying. Right now our working theories are that she’s truly surrendering _or_ she’s trying to gain access to the subsystem in an attempt to breach Athena’s defenses _and-slash-or_ she’s attempting to capture you. Keep out of sight and stay on your toes. I’ve reassigned one of the spyders to have your back while the other two keep on eye on her, and the drones are at optimum altitude for maximum resolution. Give us a few minutes to analyze the situation and we’ll be back to you.”

 

“Understood.” Hanzo had grimaced as the gorilla listed off his “theories”, but on one level it was good that the gorilla’s optimism--or naïveté--was not overpowering his skepticism. He was making good on his little speech back in India. On another level, however, Hanzo’s own skepticism was finding her motivations and explanations wanting--her assertion that she _must not_ be taken to an Overwatch facility stank of reverse psychology, for one, and the promise of information about some sort of vast conspiracy being brought to them on a silver platter seemed far too good to be true.

 

Even her “gift” of the key to decrypting the Satellite Campus data was suspect. Offering such a key to heretofore indescifrable data would be a masterful way to gain Overwatch’s trust, but only if the cost of the data revealed was outweighed by the value of the intelligence gained. Thus, Hanzo was more inclined to think that all he had managed to obtain was garbage or even “siren data”, a security measure wherein a computer system gussied up or gave extra security to meaningless or harmless information to make it appear more attractive to hackers, centering their attention on it while actual useful data sat unassumingly off to the side.

 

Hanzo was not in a position to determine the veracity of that, though--all he could do was keep watch on the small figure of the Vishkar agent and trust that Winston and Athena would not fall into any traps she might have laid out.

 

The time passed, heavy and tense. The Vishkar agent did not sit back down. She stood straight and tall in an almost militaristic fashion, which was in keeping with her bearing both in the As You Like It Café and in the midst of the attack on the Satellite Campus.

 

He frowned at that perception--would that be expected of an architech? As far as Hanzo understood, they were taught how to build and create all manner of hardlight constructions both on the fly and as part of largescale construction projects at some sort of architech academy in Utopaea, but that did not necessarily imply military-style training. There had been a distinction of rank between Victors Golf and Hotel and the young architechs under their supervision, but in a distinctly corporate fashion, and the architechs themselves had behaved more or less like any other group of overworked young professionals rather than soldiers.

 

But then again, this Vishkar agent had several signs of being different. She was the lone architech that he had seen wear that particular style of uniform, for example--the purple-and-gold instead of white-and-gold. She was the only one with a--code name?--of sorts. And she had clearly outranked Victor Golf during the attack on the Satellite Campus--and come to think of it, Victor Golf has mentioned some sort of “division” that she was a member of.

 

It would be tempting for Overwatch to take her at her word. The signs were pointing to the Vishkar agent being quite extraordinary in some fashion--which made it all the more unlikely that she could be trusted. In Hanzo’s experience, deserters, traitors, and moles usually came from the lower ranks. They had less to lose and more unaddressed grievances as a result of powerlessness and disregard by their superiors.

 

The shadows noticeably lengthened as the sun dipped into the afternoon. The surrounding silence was broken by a stiff wind rustled the trees and shrubs all around. The toneless music of water falling off the branches rose and fell sharply until fading under the sound of the creaking branches as the last of the rainwater was shaken to the ground.

 

Hanzo did his best to keep his muscles from tensing as he kept watch, but the potential masking of any approaching footsteps or vehicles was at the forefront of his mind and he could not entirely prevent it. It was some relief when Winston finally came back on the earpiece, but only for the briefest of moments.

 

“Agent Shimada--are you be able to host seven people?”

 

Hanzo felt his legs’ grip on the branch loosen ever-so-slightly from sheer shock. He quickly shifted to compensate, grabbing onto a nearby branch to steady himself, but it took a few moments to formulate a response--which turned out to be too long for Winston’s comfort.

 

“Agent Shimada? _Agent Shimada?_ Are you there?”

 

“Yes,” he hissed in reply. “Do you intend to hold her _here?_ ”

 

The gorilla was silent for a moment. “I think it may be the best option,” he said slowly. “Her demand not to be brought to an Overwatch facility appears to be--well-founded.”

 

“In what way?” Hanzo tried to modulate his voice, but the question came out more as a demand.

 

“Her--her allegations appear to carry some weight,” said Winston, sounding evasive, which did nothing for Hanzo’s paranoia nor his mood. “We-- _I’m_ exploring the option of hosting--” He stopped short and growled under his breath, low and deep enough that Hanzo could almost imagine feeling it in his chest. “Guh, I’m still in diplomat mode.” Raising his voice again, he said, “You wouldn’t be hosting. You’d be assisting us in interrogating her.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “This site is compromised.”

 

“Yes,” said Winston heavily, “and we’ve already identified the likely way she did it.”

 

A sigh was escaping him before he realized it, his chest deflating even as it filled with bitter self-recrimination.

 

It must have been something that should have been blatantly obvious. He was a _fool._ He really had burned down everything around him out of sheer ineptitude. “How?” he asked tiredly, almost dreading the full details.

 

“I’m hoping she’ll tell us,” said Winston with a trace of evasion creeping back into his voice. “For now--for now I’m going to trust couriers more than the comm, but there are reasons to believe that your location hasn’t been reported to Vishkar--which means that it may serve as a holding area while we interrogate her and determine how much we can trust her--if at all.”

 

Nonplussed, Hanzo ventured, “And if she has laid out a trap for the arriving agents?”

 

“If it’s a trap, then you’re already caught in it,” said Winston grimly, “so we’re coming to help you one way or another.”

 

His pride surged up in indignant defiance at the notion that he was already captured, but he forced it down--there was no conclusive evidence that he was not effectively imprisoned at that moment.

 

The notion that he needed assistance escaping was the more damaging insinuation anyway.

 

“But back to my question--”

 

Oh. Yes.

 

“I--” he mused outloud, thinking. “I am not equipped with anything resembling a holding cell.”

 

“Leave that to us,” said Winston immediately. “All I need to know is if you have room for seven people and yourself.”

 

Between the two houses there were four bedrooms and two sitting rooms, so technically--

 

“Yes,” admitted Hanzo, trying to ward off his dispondance.

 

“Alright. Alright, okay, a team will be there in less than sixteen hours, fourteen if Tor--ahem, fourteen if we hurry. Until then, she’ll be in your custody until the team gets there.”

 

“Understood.” Hanzo glanced up at the Vishkar agent. Where to take her? He was tempted to use one of the other abandoned homesteads scattered about the depression, but if Vishkar was monitoring him, then they already knew about the homestead, and that was where he was best prepared to make a stand--and if he had the opportunity, he could better prepare to flee with the supplies there. “I will take her to the homestead.”

 

“Alright. Take all necessary precautions as you escort her and keep her under surveillance--Athena will search her and help you monitor her. The team will bring further orders when they arrive.”

 

“Understood,” Hanzo murmured. He stared at the Vishkar agent from his perch for a few moments before he began making his way down the tree, scowling all the way.

 

“Escort her”--instead of fleeing for his life, he was expected to put it in the hands of a complete unknown--but, as Winston had said, it might very well be already.

 

He did not give up on stealth in the slightest, skulking between the trees as noiselessly as possible. Before long, Athena warned him of the approach of the other two spyders, which was a prudent move--Hanzo may not have taken the soft scuttling noises for the small animals they sounded like otherwise, especially with Storm Bow at the ready.

 

As he and his two escorts approached the road at last, a small beep in his ear alerted him that Winston was about to speak.

 

“I accept your initial conditions,” he said through the spyder keeping station in front of the Vishkar agent. She stirred at the announcement, nodding curtly, the high bun of her hair bouncing at the motion. “An Overwatch agent will arrive momentarily to take you into custody. Please extend your full cooperation.”

 

“Very well,” she replied.

 

Hanzo glanced up and down the road, steeled himself for a gunshot or ambush, and strode out onto the road, an arrow nocked and ready, but pointed downwards--if he was being watched by her Vishkar allies, having a weapon pointed at her back might provoke them into deadly action.

 

“Remain where you are,” he ordered as he approached. “Do not turn around.” She complied, staring straight ahead as far as he could tell. He distrustfully eyed the chair she had created. He would take nothing for granted. “You will keep your hand in full sight at all times. Make no sudden movements. Do you understand?”

 

“Yes,” she said shortly.

 

“Move three meters to your left.”

 

She moved accordingly, keeping her hand well away from her jacket and facing away from him as instructed. When she stopped, Athena announced through the spyder, “You will be subjected to an ultrasonic inspection. There is no inherent physiological danger, but it will reveal every object in your possession. Do you object?”

 

“No.”

 

Hanzo watched as the spyder approached and made an initial tight circle around the Vishkar agent before physically climbing up her side. She immediately stiffened, her fist clenching, but she made no other movement as the spyder reached her shoulder, crossed to the other across her back, and climbed back down, its carapace hovering low over her clothing all the while. At the same time, one of the spyders that accompanied Hanzo carefully picked its way forward to her prosthetic lying on the ground, bending low to examine it as well, but not touching it.

 

“Scan complete,” Athena proclaimed as soon as the spyder hit the ground. “Thank you for your cooperation. One moment, please.” In Hanzo’s ear, she whispered, “The prosthetic conforms to a known Vishkar hardlight projection module. I’m not detecting any active comm signals from it, but I recommend leaving it behind with a spyder to watch over it. It will be out of range, but it will monitor it for any compromising communications.” Hanzo answered with a quiet grunt. “There is no indication of technology within resolution of the scan on her person aside from the prosthetic port in her left shoulder. She has five items total in her coat pockets that appear to be food and drinks, but the composition of the fluid is impossible to determine. I recommend leaving them behind as well.”

 

“Empty your pockets, slowly,” he ordered.

 

The Vishkar agent methodically pulled item after item from her pockets. True to Athena’s word, they appeared to be nutrition bars and two bottles of water, which she held out at arm’s length before dropping them to the ground. She had some trouble reaching into her left pockets with her one hand, but soon enough she stilled.

 

Hanzo looked about him once more, eyes narrowed, taking in the seemingly deserted area around them, both to search for observers but also to think over the merits of a blindfold--he had a hair ribbon in one of his coat pockets, one of the few things he had grabbed that was small and light enough to take with him if he was forced to flee on foot, but the way to the cache had many obstacles, and he was not sure he wished to approach the Vishkar agent despite Athena’s scan--he would not put it past her to have some kind of hardlight projector in the port for her prosthetic, for example.

 

Plus, there was little more she would discover about the layout of the depression that she and her possible accomplices would not already have learned from satellite images and direct observation.

 

“Move forward. Keep clear of the prosthetic,” he warned, trailing four or five meters behind as she began to march. If she was worried for its safety, she said nothing. If it had been Hanzo’s decision, he would have simply destroyed it, but perhaps Overwatch hoped to glean some information from it despite the security risk.

 

The next hour and a half was spent in strained silence, broken only by the wind whistling through the surrounding foliage and Hanzo’s brief instructions. They made their way up through the rest of the valley and entered the depression itself, with one spyder staying off to one side of the Vishkar agent while the other rode poised on Hanzo’s shoulder to help save its battery during the comparatively long walk, made longer by the tall grass and brush that choked the road at random intervals. The Vishkar agent often stumbled as she forced her way through it, but she did not attempt to look back even once--he could not tell if she was even glancing at her surroundings. She kept her hand well away from her body even when she slipped or tripped on something hidden and nearly fell. She seemed to be taking Hanzo’s orders quite seriously.

 

One of the drones occasionally passed overhead as they made their way. He had no idea where Athena was directing them at the moment, but one began to circle overhead when they passed by the cat colony--he imagined that she still did not entirely trust that no one was attempting to lose their infrared signal among the cats.

 

He gave the colony a brief visual inspection as they went by, even as he tried to keep an eye on the Vishkar agent’s back at the same time. It appeared to have weathered the typhoons with virtually no damage as his own homestead had done--but there was little to be seen from here, so he could not be sure.

 

He might never be sure. He would likely never pass this way again.

 

He pushed the thought away--it was a distraction. He could not indulge it while possibly in mortal danger.

 

They finally reached the cache. They were joined by one of the spyders he had left behind as they turned off the road, but the others did not reveal themselves. Hanzo directed her to walk just past the entrance to the western house and stop. He unlocked the storm panels and door and stepped back.

 

“You may enter. Go to the corner ahead and to the right and stand facing it.”

 

She complied, still avoiding looking at him, but she hesitated on the threshold. “May--” she said, speaking for the first time since being scanned by the spyder, “--may I take off my footwear?”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow--but being shoeless _would_ hinder her if she tried to escape outdoors or participated in an attack.

 

And her shoes were muddy. He did not want her trailing mud across the--

 

It did not matter what she did to the floor. It was no longer any concern of Hanzo’s what happened here.

 

“Proceed,” he said, forcing down his sentimentality. “Leave them by the side of the entrance.”

 

She reached down and gingerly unlaced her shoes, sliding off the black, sturdy, yet oddly stylish ankle-high hiking boots and setting them aside. As she walked to face the corner, Hanzo gestured at her shoes and the spyder on his shoulder jumped to the ground and inspected them inside and out. As soon as it finished, it went to join the one that had come to meet them in inspecting the house. Hanzo flicked the light on, revealing a sitting room and kitchen with an identical floorplan to the eastern house, but with bare walls that had been covered in peeling wallpaper before he first came here and scraped it all off. Leaning against and taking up most of one wall were waist-high thin objects wrapped tightly in tarps and ropes, with heavy plastic containers pressed against them to keep them from falling or slipping during an earthquake.

 

He glanced at his own feet with a frown. They were equally muddy as the Vishkar agent’s boots--but it no longer mattered, and he would be at an advantage with outdoor feet. He scraped them against the threshold as best he could for a moment before he stepped inside, fighting against the irrational revulsion as he felt the thin carpet sink under his dirty soles.

 

He hooked Storm Bow over his shoulder, closed and locked the panels and door behind him and turned, frowning at the Vishkar agent’s back for a moment. It would be prudent to immobilize her--but he frowned when it occurred to him that both he and she would need to make some preparations. He would wait until there was more than one spyder to keep an eye on her. The one that had stayed at her side for the march was still standing close by, but the walk had apparently been draining. One of its legs was plugged into an outlet even while it kept watch on her--and he would prefer that there always be at least one observer out of arm’s-reach.

 

One of the other spyders reappeared, dragging another electric lantern behind it that it had brought out of the basement. Hanzo took it and placed it in the middle of the floor before saying, “I will return shortly. Do not move.” Gesturing at the extra spyder to stay where it was, he swept out into the hallway and down the stairs into the large one-room basement. In one corner stood both the water heater and the thick pipe that led down into the well, with a bulky electric pump and spigot about halfway up from the floor. In the opposite corner were several containers and boxes, and Hanzo moved swiftly to rummage through then until he shouldered a short bundle of rope and pocketed a bar of soap and a roll of toilet paper. He picked up a large 20L water jug and a bucket and took them to the spigot, half filling the jug and completely filling the bucket while tapping impatiently on the pipe with one finger. The noisy jet echoed through the room. Once done, he picked them up and quickly climbed back up the stairs, the sloshing water destroying any semblance of stealth.

 

He left the bucket, soap, and toilet paper next to the sink in the bathroom before he tested the storm shutters over the bathroom window. Satisfied that the padlock was not rusted or broken, he returned to the sitting room. The Vishkar agent had not moved and did not move as he set the water jug down against the wall close by her. Once his hands were free he spoke, his voice rough with disuse. “You will be restrained.”

 

She stiffened and she clenched her fist once more. “That is not necessary. I have surrendered,” she bit out, her voice muffled somewhat as she spoke into the corner.

 

“You are in custody,” he flatly corrected, “and you will be restrained until circumstances allow otherwise.”

 

“You have scanned me. I carry no weapons. I pose no threat.”

 

“Every precaution must be taken until your claims can be verified.”

 

Her clenched fist trembled slightly. Hanzo tensed, glancing towards the entrance. Would this be what triggered an attack?

 

“How will you--restrain me?” asked the Vishkar agent, slowly unclenching her fist and stretching her fingers out in a painfully deliberate motion.

 

“I will tie your legs together at the ankle,” he answered, watching her closely.

 

“And--and my hand?”

 

Hanzo frowned--the question had a strong undercurrent of--trepidation. Fear. If she was nervous about having her arm restrained, Hanzo’s first instinct was to do it, but _nervous_ was not the same as _afraid_ \--especially when she had shown no fear before now.

 

She might be attempting to manipulate him and keep her arm free for any number of nefarious purposes.

 

Or she might be trying to retain a bare minimum of control in a perilous situation in which she was already down an arm.

 

Hanzo teetered on the edge of indecision. Were it up to him and only him, he would take no chances whatsoever--but Overwatch _was_ taking a chance, and so--

 

He sighed. All of this handwringing could have been avoided if he had been allowed to just run away into the mountains.

 

“So long as you cooperate, I will not restrain your hand,” he said at last. “But I reserve the right to do so at my discretion.”

 

She immediately relaxed. “I understand. It will not be necessary.” Almost immediately, however, she tensed again but only slightly. “I--may--” She fell silent for a moment before she mumbled, “You may proceed.”

 

Unfortunately, there was something to do beforehand. He took in a deep breath to bolster himself. “I advise you to use the restroom first,” he said, his voice slightly forced even though he wanted to barrel through the indelicate subject as quickly as possible. She must have shared a similar opinion about it, because she clenched her fist again. He rushed to add, “One of the bots will accompany you.”

 

“Very well,” she said, relaxing very, very slightly once more.

 

“There is no running water, but there is a bucketful prepared.”

 

“With soap?” she asked pointedly.

 

“Yes.” He moved back a little. “Turn to your left and proceed to the hallway.”

 

She obeyed, and her eyes widened beneath her golden rimless visor when she caught sight of him. He stared impassively back, but that was the extent of her reaction. She moved as he instructed, a spyder scuttling ahead of her while he followed until she closed the bathroom door behind herself, avoiding his eyes as she did.

 

He could admit to himself that he would have done much the same in her position, he mused as he stood guard next to the door. This was all supremely awkward.

 

He could only be thankful that Athena was available to assist. He was not exactly sure what he would have done if he was completely alone in this situation--for one, it would never have arisen, and for another, he had never had to act as a prison guard, temporarily or otherwise, and certainly not for a woman.

 

He hoped this would be the only time they would have to do this, and that the incoming team would be better equipped to avoid or minimize this kind of--tactlessness.

 

The Vishkar agent continued to avoid his eyes when she emerged and walked back into the sitting room with no prompting, determinedly facing the corner once more.

 

He trailed behind her and softly murmured, “Sit with your back to the wall and with your legs stretched out in front of you. Please.”

 

It took a moment for her to comply, and when she did even the low light and her dark complexion could not hide her embarrassment, though the thin straight line of her lips would have betrayed her chagrin regardless.

 

He considered apologizing, but it was best not to reveal he was discomfited in case she chose to utilize the situation as a distraction--but he avoided her eyes as purposefully as she was his as he wrapped the rope around her ankles and lower legs, pinching the purple and gold fabric of her trousers slightly. She sat against the wall, back almost unnaturally straight, the empty sleeve of her coat flopping uselessly and her arm placed well off to side, still in plain sight.

 

Finally he was able to stand and retreat back a few steps. She looked up at him, her dark eyes leant a golden tinge through the visor. “And now?”

 

Athena answered for him. “Food and water,” she said through the Vishkar agent’s spyder, plugged once more into the wall. “Do you observe any dietary restrictions or have any allergies?”

 

Surprise flitted over her face for a moment before she suppressed it. “I--am a vegetarian,” she said with an edge of reluctance. Hanzo nodded, slightly nonplussed that he was expected to _feed_ the Vishkar agent but hiding it easily.

 

“Do you require anything else for your comfort?”

 

The Vishkar agent glanced at Hanzo. “No, nothing.”

 

“Are you certain?” asked Athena with a certain amount of a pressing tone. “It is currently six degrees.”

 

Hanzo caught on to the AI’s intentions. The Vishkar agent was surely used to a much warmer climate. He sighed internally--but if this was Overwatch’s protocol for treating prisoners, he could only follow it. “One moment,” he cut in. “I will bring blankets. You may layer them as needed.” Leaving the Vishkar agent under Athena’s supervision for a few moments, he went to one of the bedrooms. It was a similar scene as the bedroom in the other house, but it was dedicated more to equipment rather than foodstuffs--most of the floor was taken up by four boxes that were each two meters long: the supports and blades for the windmills he had mentioned to Athena.

 

However, Hanzo had stowed blankets in here on the off-chance that a blizzard might trap him in this house. He slipped them out of their plastic bags and carried them into the sitting room. He placed them within arm’s reach on the Vishkar agent’s right. “If you begin to get cold, I suggest insulating yourself from the floor,” he said as he stepped back. “I will return with your meal shortly.”

 

“Thank you,” said the Vishkar agent as she inspected the blankets with a flat look. “I--I hope I will not inconvenience you for long.”

 

Hanzo rolled his eyes as he went down the hall. Even if she was telling the complete truth, she had already driven him out of his cache. Anything else she did or required was infinitesimal compared to that heavy reality.

 

But, he reminded himself, the loss was entirely his fault. He should never have come here in the first place, and it was ultimately his foolishness and weakness that had cost him everything--as usual.

 

He searched through the more limited food supplies he kept in this house, coming up with cans of sugar peas and some sort of mixed vegetable soup. Ironically, he had some curry, too, but Japanese curry was quite different from the Indian curry he had found in the Kurnool District--it was thicker and nowhere near as spicy, but that was partially because he had been in Andhra Pradesh--both it and neighboring Telangana boasted the hottest chili curries in all of India, which Hanzo had only discovered while sampling a bite in a streetside café.

 

He had thought himself well fortified against spicy heat until that moment.

 

The Vishkar agent could very well find all the Japanese curry he had quite bland in comparison. But it turned out to be a non-issue, since all the cans he had contained pork.

 

He returned to the sitting room after locating a pair of chopsticks and a cup, showing everything to the Vishkar agent. “Are these acceptable?” he asked after reading off the ingredients.

 

“Yes,” she said, and he opened the cans and set them at her side and put the cup next to the water jug, all within reach of her one hand.

 

“I apologize for the chopsticks,” he said, laying them across the top of one of the cans. “I have no other utensils.”

 

She shook her head. “They are more than acceptable.” She picked them up and fished around in the vegetable soup can, snagging a piece as though she had used them all her life. Hanzo nodded with a twinge of relief working its way through his annoyance and dissatisfaction with the entire situation.

 

He retreated to and knelt in the corner of the room that allowed him to best survey the Vishkar agent, the door, and the hallway. As she ate, he took out his comm and brought up the feed from the drones. Athena had them keeping station around the homestead, which he supposed was as good a place for them as any--they were of limited utility now that the depression had potentially been discovered by Vishkar. They were meant to detect wanderers or scavengers who would come by the easiest routes through the valleys. An attack sponsored by one of the world’s richest corporations was as likely to come straight over the mountains, and there was no hope that only two drones would watch the entire perimeter. It seemed Athena had chosen to have the drones watch the immediate surroundings of the homestead instead, despite the minimal amount of warning they would provide when an attack came.

 

The Vishkar agent soon finished her meal, such as it was, laying aside the empty cans with the chopsticks carefully balanced on top. Hanzo stood to collect them. He saw with a mixture of relief and sympathy that she had not drunk a single drop of water--the less encouragement of _that_ business, the better--and he himself was determined to do much the same to minimize the amount of time he spent out of the room despite Athena’s assistance.

 

After the meal, both he and the Vishkar agent settled in to wait out the time as it crawled by. She sat against the wall and looked straight ahead, back pressed flush to the wall even as the hours began to wear on, hardly seeming to tire or relax at all. All the while she kept her hand well away from her body, palm down on the floor, adhering to that directive almost to an extreme.

 

Hanzo, for his part, sat seiza at his post, keeping his eyes and ears open for the smallest indication of--anything, really. He had his comm in his hands, Storm Bow over his shoulder, and his quiver on his back--he was as prepared as he was ever going to be, and his rigid posture rivaled the Vishkar agent’s, though he was sure she was having an easier time of it--she was clearly younger than him.

 

They both only stirred at Athena’s behest. It became clear that she had taken it upon herself to be a chief warden of sorts--once an hour she sent a spyder to the Vishkar agent to ask after her. “Do you require anything? Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Are you tired? Are you warm enough?” She even checked on the circulation in her feet, asking permission to prod at the top of them to make sure they had not gone numb from the constriction of the ropes. Hanzo had tensed the first time she asked--surely the Vishkar agent would use it as an opportunity to regain her mobility--but she had only nodded when Athena asked if she could feel the spyder poking at them.

 

Still, it established a dangerous precedent. If and when the Vishkar attack came, they might communicate that fact to their agent, who could then feign distress at the loss of feeling in her legs and force Hanzo to free her just in time to assist in his capture--assuming, of course, that Athena was sincerely monitoring the circulation and not merely pretending to in order to build up an image of Overwatch’s benevolence.

 

He resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.

 

Sunset arrived, the event quite obvious even inside the fortified building from the marked drop in temperature. The Vishkar agent began to spread out the blankets, but the task was obviously difficult. Hanzo rose to help at the same moment Athena asked, “Do you require assistance?”

 

“No,” said the Vishkar agent with a curt shake of her head, not looking up. “I am perfectly able to complete this task.”

 

Hanzo knelt back down, but Athena did not back off so easily. “It’s possible to make the blankets into a bed if you’d like to sleep.”

 

The Vishkar agent shook her head again as she lifted herself onto the crude cushion she had fashioned. “That will not be necessary. I prefer to remain awake.”

 

Hanzo could sympathize. He would not be disposed to sleeping in the same room as--

 

But he might have to, he realized with a small pang. If Overwatch found no evidence of observers and Vishkar did not attack, then he would be “hosting” six Overwatch agents plus the Vishkar agent. His stomach dropped as he thought of dividing eight people total among the two houses.

 

If there were not a high risk of a Vishkar attack, Hanzo would rather sleep in the barn--he had done so before.

 

Well. He would face that problem when it arrived in--he checked the comm--eleven hours or so.

 

But even having that much time until he had to face the problem did not prevent him from pondering it--as well as wonder _who_ would come. Winston had wisely not told him the team’s composition over the comm, so he could only guess.

 

Unfortunately, it occurred to him that this situation was fairly similar to another Overwatch mission sent to intercept a potential enemy--and it stood to reason that the team composition might be quite similar.

 

The hours flowed past like chilled syrup.

 

The silence deepened--even Athena’s regular checks ceased. Hanzo wondered at the first missed check-in until he glanced at the time and saw it was after 2200. The Vishkar agent gave no sign whatsoever of settling down to sleep, but he supposed that Athena was subtly encouraging her to do so by not intruding.

 

The temperature in the room continued to drop. The Vishkar agent draped blankets over herself, first over her legs and then over her torso despite her thick coat. She kept her hand exposed, however, and just before midnight Hanzo caught her subtly flexing her fingers. At first he thought she was succumbing to frustration or boredom--or anticipating an attack--before he chastised himself for forgetting what kind of climate she was used to.

 

“Do you require gl--a glove?”

 

Her fingers froze at the sound of his voice, and she glanced at him. “No, I--” she started to say, but she stopped herself and gave the barest whisper of a sigh. “Yes, please. I am--not accustomed to these temperatures.”

 

Hanzo nodded and stood, grateful for the opportunity to allow more bloodflow into his thighs and stubs. He went into one of the bedrooms and returned shortly with the glove, as well as a small packet. He fitted the glove over her hand immediately, given how long she must have been suffering from the cold, before he showed her the packet and said, “This is a handwarmer--I can put it in the glove to guard against the cold for about six hours.”

 

She looked from the packet to his face. “Will it be that much longer?”

 

He merely looked back.

 

She sighed, not bothering to hide it in the least this time. “Thank you, I would appreciate it.”  

 

He twisted the packet to break the inner seal and pushed it into the glove underneath her palm. Her fingers curled around it immediately, seemingly almost against her will if the sudden set of her lips and furrowed brow meant anything.

 

Hanzo retreated back to the corner, but, surprisingly, she followed him with her eyes, and as soon as he settled, she said, “Do you not require protection from the cold?”

 

He tilted his head slightly and glanced down at his own jacket--it was not nearly as thick as hers, it was true, but he still wore it--but his bare hands stood out starkly against the dark fabric of his slacks. “This is not particularly cold weather for the time of year,” he said, “and it will not be long before it is much colder.”

 

She grimaced slightly. “Is it likely to snow soon?”

 

He shrugged slightly. “It may.”

 

Her grimace bordered on becoming an outright scowl, but she said nothing more as she attempted to burrow a little further into her blankets.

 

Outside, the drones were continuing their patrol, but they picked up nothing more than a few nocturnal predators. The cats and foxes ranging across the depression were likely to do well tonight--it was a new moon, but that very fact made Hanzo all the more nervous. He had timed many missions to take advantage of a moonless night, and he would not put it past Vishkar to do the same.

 

But surprisingly, six hours passed with no sight nor sound of anything the least bit suspicious, even as the sky turned rosy pink and the drones caught the first rays of the sun while the depression below was still bathed in shadow--but they did not get much of a chance to charge their depleted batteries.

 

“Agent Shimada,” whispered Athena into his ear. He gave no sign of listening intently despite the fact it was the first time she had spoken in hours. “I am landing the drones and switching off their feed.”

 

His grit his teeth for a moment and almost demanded an explanation while scrambling for his comm--but he forced himself to stop.

 

Overwatch had come. Athena was grounding the drones to prevent their feed from being used against them in case Vishkar was intercepting it.

 

He subtly shrugged Storm Bow off his shoulder and into his hands, slowly and steadily. If the Vishkar agent noticed, she gave no sign--she continued to stare off into space, as she had for most of the night. He could almost believe she had sunk into a sleep-deprived stupor--but that was exactly the impression he had meant to give her in the last few hours as well, though he did not trust in his own success at all. His whole body tensed, and he shifted on his knees to try to allow a bit more blood to reach his legs in case he had to literally leap to his own defense.

 

After a few breathless minutes, the Vishkar agent blinked and focused on his bow. She immediately sat up--if she had not been playacting, then she had been distracted enough to slide down the wall a little at last. “Are we in danger?” she whispered urgently.

 

He did not answer.

 

She pressed her lips into a thin line and ventured, “Has Overwatch arrived?”

 

The silence did not last long enough for it to be an answer.

 

Someone banged on the storm panels.

 

_“Mattemashita!”_

 

Hanzo stared at the door for a split second, then he rose to his feet and went to it, scowling slightly. He hesitated for a perceptible moment before he threw open the locks and door and slowly slid the panels open, allowing a sliver of morning light to spill across the carpet and the Vishkar agent, who blinked rapidly.

 

Genji looked up at him, the flattened green line of his visor dull against the silver of his carapace. “Ah, good, you understood,” he said, his modulated voice cheerful. “Are you alright? Where is she?”

 

The minimal warning his brother had given him, by chance or by design, was sufficient to keep Hanzo from physically reeling at his sudden appearance. He mercilessly shoved down the surge of emotion in chest as he stepped back and gestured at the Vishkar agent. Genji stepped up onto the threshold and into the house, murmuring _“Shitsurei shimasu.”_

 

The cowboy appeared just behind him. “Howdy,” he said, removing his hat as he stepped in as well. He was in full costume, hat, chaps, cape, body armor, ammunition belts, and all. “Everythin’ lookin’ alright so far?”

 

Hanzo nodded, and stiffened as Agent D.Va followed closely behind. “Sup,” she said shortly. She was dressed in pixelated camo combat fatigues, her long hair gathered in a large, tight bun atop her head and with light smudges of camo paint replacing the pink warpaint she had worn previous. She held a pistol in her hands, lowered in a deceptively relaxed position. It went a little lower after she had swept the room with her eyes.

 

Genji approached the Vishkar agent. He stopped two meters away and tilted his head. She stared up at him. Her gloved fingers were clenched into a fist despite her blank, slightly defiant expression. “Greetings,” he said, voice gentle.

 

“Hello,” she replied after a short pause. Hanzo thought he caught her glancing at everyone’s feet, but he could not be sure.

 

“Hey there,” said the cowboy with a wide smile and short bow of his head. “We’re Overwatch. This here’s Agent Genji and Agent Song, I’m Agent McCree. Pleased t’make your acquaintance, Ms--?”

 

“Sy--V--Vaswani,” she said, hesitantly.

 

“Ms. Vaswani,” said the cowboy with a nod. “We’re just gonna take a few minutes t’make sure everything round here in on the up-and-up, then we’ll be glad t’start makin’ you a little more comfortable. Athena? How’re things?”

 

“No intruders of any kind have been detected within a radius of five hundred meters,” said Athena briskly through one of the spyders.

 

“Good, good,” said the cowboy, smiling down at the Vishkar agent as Agent D.Va holstered her pistol. “Alright, Ms. Vaswani, I’m gonna leave you here with Agent Genji, Agent Song, and Athena. The two of us--” he gestured at Hanzo, “--will be right back.”

 

The Vishkar agent glanced at Genji and Agent D.Va with a measuring look, but she nodded. The cowboy put his hat back on and tipped it slightly before turning to the door, motioning at Hanzo to follow him out. The cowboy slid the storm panels closed behind Hanzo and immediately headed around the corner and onto the driveway between the garages and the houses. Hanzo followed his brisk pace, searching the area around them with a distrustful eye, especially the nearest flank of the mountains only four hundred meters away. He saw no sign of anyone else--who or where the other agents were, he could not tell.

 

He _did_ spot a rather large drone hovering over one of the garages, its four propellers nearly silent as it moved over its roof in a graceful arc before heading for the barn. Another identical model was waiting in the driveway, and the cowboy led Hanzo right up to it.

 

“Gonna need your comm,” the cowboy said, glancing at Hanzo over his shoulder. Hanzo withdrew it from his pocket and handed it over. The cowboy looked it over once before he powered it off and stuck it into some webbing stretched across one side of the drone. He stepped back, holding out his arm to usher Hanzo back as well, as the drone powered up its propellers and lifted off, heading southward as soon as it cleared the surrounding buildings. The cowboy watched it go until it disappeared behind one of the houses, then he turned to Hanzo. “We think that’s how she tracked you down,” he said soberly. He dug another identical model from his own pocket and held it out. “Here’s your new one--we think we’ve got the problem fixed, but we’re on a communications blackout ‘til the initial recon is complete.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips as he gingerly took ahold of the comm the same way he might a used tissue. “How?” he asked, the question coming out more brusquely than he intended.

 

The cowboy grimaced. “That, uh--that app you had on there, the one from Kyoto University.”

 

The pit of Hanzo’s stomach dropped and he could hardly keep from clenching his eyes shut against the recrimination that immediately swept through him. He was a fool, an absolute fool. In some ways he had been holding out hope that the security breach was some mistake of Overwatch’s--but it was just a way to avoid responsibility for his own actions. The end result was the same.

 

“I’m sorry t’say we missed a pretty big security bug,” said the cowboy, frowning. “Turns out the comm software had a vulnerability that was discovered four years ago--but Athena never got the memo, so the comms never got patched. That didn’ matter much with the default apps on there, but that math app--” The cowboy took off his hat and ran his fingers through his mussed hair. “The comm uses local WiFi signals t’triangulate its position more accurately, but it’s not supposed t’communicate with ‘em, but the vulnerability allowed that app t’do exactly that. It’s been sendin’ geodata whenever it was in range of certain older routers that never got patched either. It looks like you were in range of some of ‘em in India--and on board the ferry.”

 

Hanzo nodded morosely. So Overwatch _was_ partly to blame--but _he_ was the one who had insisted on using a completely unnecessary app for his equally unnecessary entertainment.

 

Still, the explanation was not complete. “Even if the comms were sending geodata,” he said slowly, “how did she access it? And how did she connect two accounts on two different devices?”

 

“The app’s userdata is stored on a third-party server, and it was breached three days ago,” said the cowboy soberly. “Turns out--turns out you were the only user in India, much less the Kurnool District. We’re guessin’ the hacker was lookin’ for anything outta the ordinary, and that must’ve popped up as pretty damned extraordinary. Then--we _think_ they made an educated guess that anyone who created another account in a weird area was likely t’be you--and a ferry off the coast of Hokkaido was apparently weird enough. There’re only fifteen users here, and the rest of ‘em were up at the University of Ainu-Mosir.”

 

“And my signal disappeared at Hirō,” said Hanzo grimly, almost growling the words. “And from there?”

 

The cowboy shrugged. “That’ll be up t’her t’tell us. Could be any damned thing--recent satellite photos, local contacts, the UN or JSDF keepin’ track of everyone within a hundred klicks of the Omnium--we don’ know.”

 

“She was sure she would find _Overwatch_ here,” said Hanzo shortly, dissatisfied.

 

“I know,” replied the cowboy with a sigh. “But that’s as far as our workin’ theory goes. Until she starts talkin’, we won’ know.”

 

Hanzo nodded, still dissatisfied, but _he_ certainly did not know how the Vishkar agent could possibly have pinned him down so exactly. If the comm’s security bug only extended to WiFi, then all electronic tracking should have ceased as soon as Hanzo left Hirō, and Hokkaido was too large for Hanzo to be the only hermit living in the mountain valleys. He knew of at least four others, two artists, a religious fanatic, and a “trapper” who was likely a poacher, but Hanzo had not monitored her long enough to be sure. Any of them could easily have been the mysterious user on the ferry.

 

No, it was likelier that the JSDF was keeping tabs on him or that someone in Hirō had followed him, either now or in the past, and knew of his exact location, and this information had made its way to the--

 

“Hacker?” he asked suddenly. “You do not believe that _she--”_ he jerked his head at the western house, “--obtained the information herself?”

 

The cowboy pressed his lips together for a moment and shook his head. “Naw, it doesn’ fit her profile. She’s one of their best architechs, but there’s no indication that it’s within her skillset--at least, not while workin’ from within Vishkar without tippin’ ‘em off.”

 

At least Overwatch apparently knew who she was, but for Hanzo it was enough to know she was an architech. Other details could wait.

 

“Is there any indication who the hacker is?”

 

“Yeah, and it’s why Winston’s inclined t’believe she may be a genuine defector,” said the cowboy, lowering his voice and leaning forward a little with a short glance at the western house. “Whaddaya know about the Sombra Collective?”

 

Frowning, Hanzo thought back--the term sounded vaguely familiar, but it brought little to the forefront of his mind. “Nothing,” he said at last.

 

The cowboy nodded with a small smile. “And that’s the way they like it, whoever ‘they’ are. They’re a group of hackers that’ve been targetin’ corporations with government ties for a couple years--it _seems_ like they’ve got a fairly populist platform, publically at least, but they’re involved in enough dirty stuff t’make their aims a mite hazy--the ‘collective’ might have slightly different goals. They’ve been most active in Mexico, and lately they’ve been goin’ after the national power provider and ISP LumériCo--they published a bunch of documents they said proved LumériCo was fixin’ prices and censorin’ Internet traffic, among other things. Was never verified, but--that mighta had more t’do with payoffs and political connections. LumériCo’s CEO is a former president,” said the cowboy, rolling his eyes a little.

 

Hanzo’s eyes widened slightly. “LumériCo--” he murmured, thinking back to the complaints of the Kurnool District’s pundits and citizens about the frequent brownouts and India’s reluctance to invest in other means of power production, compared to other countries. “--LumériCo is the world’s foremost manufacturer of fusion technology.”

 

The cowboy grinned. “And guess what that data you got happens t’have?”

 

“Evidence of collusion between the two companies.” Which would explain why a group of Mexican hackers would be sniffing around an Indian conglomerate--and why they might reach out to one of its employees. Hanzo’s eyes narrowed. “But in exchange for what?”

 

“Sonic pacification technology,” answered the cowboy with a smug smile, tapping his right ear. “The same kind they got in the Inner Ring. LumériCo’s CEO got ousted by the fallout surroundin’ the leak--but even before the charges against the company were dropped, public opinion swung from negative to apathetic puh-ree-tee damned quick and he was brought back in. Not _the_ most suspicious thing in the world, but--”

 

But suspicious enough.

 

Hanzo nodded slowly. “And you believe these hackers sent her to Overwatch? Why?”

 

“That’s a real good question, one we ain’ got the answer to yet,” admitted the cowboy. “And there’s enough of a history t’ _her_ in particular t’put the whole thing in doubt. You remember how Luz drove Vishkar out of Rio?” At Hanzo’s nod, the cowboy began tapping on the grip of his revolver in its holster. “She was part of the Vishkar liaison t’the city government, so she might be part of a plot t’get close enough t’him and take him out, or at least recover the technology he stole from ‘em--or she may have something personal against him. That’s pretty damn likely in my humble opinion--accordin’ t’Vishkar’s company bio, she started attendin’ their architech academy when she was eleven years old, five years before most of their students. She’s their third-youngest architech ever, and people will do anything for someone who practically raised you.” The cowboy paused for a moment and looked away. “You, uh--you and I know that pretty well.”

 

Hanzo set his jaw and fought to keep a scowl from overtaking his face. He did not need to be reminded of that right now, even or especially if the cowboy tried to frame it as self-deprecation.

 

“It’s, uh--it’s because of that, actually, that I want us both t’keep an eye on her,” the cowboy muttered, still addressing the western house more than Hanzo, “just t’see if we can figure out if she’s bein’ honest. And--for you t’keep an eye on me, t’make sure I’m not--goin’ back to old habits.”

 

Hanzo blinked. “What?”

 

The cowboy seemed to force himself to meet Hanzo’s eyes. “I--” His jaw snapped shut for a moment and a wave of frustration flitted briefly across his face before he gathered himself. “The last time we brought in someone who was a potential risk,” he said, speaking slowly and determinedly, “I fucked it all up by treatin’ him like a proven enemy. Turns out he wasn’, but I only found that out after exposin’ a whole strike team t’far more risk than he represented. I don’ want t’make that mistake again.”

 

Hanzo almost physically bit his tongue to keep from blurting out something--he was not sure what it might have been, but it was likely to have been unfortunate. Reining in his shock--and rising anger--he looked around once more, trying to spot anyone who might be listening in and wondering if he should risk the possibility of the cowboy having some live commlink, his claim of a communications blackout notwithstanding.

 

But his anger quickly overtook any concern.

 

“I _am_ a proven enemy,” he hissed. “You are--were--” He floundered for a moment under an embarrassing uncertainty. This was so unexpected, so _wrong,_ that for one insane moment he could almost take the cowboy’s strange behavior over the last few weeks at face value--but he reeled back from that impossible--unlikely-- _ridiculous_ notion.

 

It was an act. It had to be an act.

 

“-- _are_ right to treat me as such.” He paused for a moment to rein himself in. The cowboy had chosen a terrible time to broach this subject--there was a Vishkar agent in custody less than fifteen meters away, after all. _That_ thought helped immensely in calming himself--the cowboy could very well be attempting to discomfit him and throw him off-balance while they were potentially surrounded by enemies.

 

“Furthermore,” he ground out, forcing the words out while pointedly ignoring the cowboy’s strange expression, equal parts worried and irritated. “Furthermore, she is _also_ a proven enemy. She is Vishkar, and you must not trust her any more than you trust me.”  

 

The cowboy was silent for a few long seconds with his strange expression unchanging, mouth curved downwards in a pronounced frown, brow furrowed--eyes sad. Then he stirred. “Of course I don’ trust her,” he said in a low voice. “None of us do. I’m just--I’m just sayin’ that there’s a _possibility_ that she’s not an enemy. There’s a possibility she’s a--a _former_ enemy.” He hesitated for a bare moment, a muscle working in his jaw, before he took a deep breath. “Like you.”

 

Hanzo stared at him. He could _only_ stare at him.

 

The cowboy only looked back--and for a brief moment his expression softened into something unreadable and he opened his mouth to say something more--

 

\--but he was interrupted by the quiet _whoosh_ of a hovercycle as it swung around the corner of the western house, off the road leading to the north.

 

“Hey!” called out Agent Mei cheerfully, wearing a moped helmet and waving with one arm while the other was wrapped securely around the waist of an unfamiliar woman. She appeared to be tall, but at first it might have been only because she was sitting ahead of the diminutive Agent Mei, but as the hovercycle slowed and approached, it soon became apparent that her height was no illusion--her long legs hugged the sides of the hovercycle far below those of Agent Mei, who might only be able to stay on the hovercycle by holding on to her.

 

The cowboy waved back. “Welcome back,” he greeted, stepping away from Hanzo a little and grinning, partially in welcome, partially, it seemed to Hanzo, in relief. “You got anything?”

 

“Nothing,” said the driver of the hovercycle as she brought it to a stop in front of the cowboy. “The northern perimeter looks clear.” She spoke in a low contralto and a pronounced accent that Hanzo could not place. Agent Mei scrambled off the back of the hovercycle while the other woman dismounted with confident, strong movements. They were both dressed in combat fatigues, but with different patterns and hues--Agent Mei’s were bluer (and much thicker) while the others were yellower.

 

“Hello!” Agent Mei said as she took off her helmet. “Good to see that you’re okay!”

 

“And you,” replied Hanzo, bowing his head in greeting, only barely remembering his manners after the perturbation the cowboy had brought on.

 

The newcomer was about as tall as the cowboy with a well-muscled frame. Her skin was darker than the cowboy’s, and when she took off her own helmet she revealed jetblack hair that was mostly tied back in a bun that resembled Agent Mei’s, though both women’s hair was currently squashed under hairnets--but the newcomer had two braids that were allowed to swing down from her temples, each disappearing behind her defined shoulders where they had been swept back by the wind of the hovercycle.

 

She was a very pretty woman, with a straight nose and intelligent, penetrating inkwell eyes. She had a black tattoo under her right eye that trailed and curled over her cheekbone like a soft musical note, which only served to accentuate how her gaze swept over the homestead twice before she focused an almost challenging look on Hanzo.

 

She stepped forward, stood at-ease, and stuck out her right hand. “Agent Pharah, Helix Security International,” she said in a formal tone.

 

Hanzo shook her hand with no hesitation, surprised by the gesture and her employer but not at all by the strong grip. “Agent Shimada,” he replied, matching her formality.

 

She nodded and stepped back slightly. “Where are the others?” she asked, addressing the cowboy.

 

“Should be back any minute now,” he said, pulling out his comm and checking the time. “Athena hasn’ dug up anything either, so as soon as they report back we can break radio silence.”

 

Agent Pharah nodded. “I’ll do a quick patrol of the inner perimeter before they do.” She turned back to Hanzo. “Agent Shimada, will you accompany me?”

 

Hanzo hesitated and glanced at the cowboy, who nodded in an almost encouraging manner. “Of course.”

 

“Good. Let’s go.” And she set off, aiming to walk around and behind the two garages. Agent Mei waved and stayed with the cowboy, drawing near to speak with him in a low voice as Hanzo followed.

 

Agent Pharah allowed him to catch up with her just before she turned around the corner of the far garage. There was little to see as they went around the back and started towards the road, but nevertheless she seemed to be taking in as much detail as she could with almost eagle-eyed intensity, looking the buildings over from their foundations to their solar panels. She pointed at the panels and asked, “Functional?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How much power do they produce?”

 

“The minimum is usually around 1500 watts, but at this time of year it will be closer to 5000.”

 

She hummed a little under her breath. They crossed the road and began to circle around the barn, where she paid close attention to the entrances and windows.

 

They were about to cross the road again when she stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face him full-on.

 

“So, let’s get Genji out of the way real quick,” she said bluntly, studying his face with the same intensity that she had been giving the homestead. Hanzo did not reply, he merely returned her look while he tried to maintain as neutral an expression as possible. “I was never that close to Genji,” she continued, looking him dead in the eye, “but I was to Jesse--he was my big brother for a while, which made Genji my big brother’s best friend. I knew him a little back in the day, enough that I don’t like you, but given what Jesse’s told me _,_ you were expecting that, so I’m not going to go through the whole ‘I’m watching you’ thing because that’s obvious.

 

“So here’s the deal: multiple people have told me you’re professional and by-the-book, and if that’s true you and I aren’t going to have any problems. I don’t like you and you don’t have to like me, but as long as you get the job done, I will, too. Alright?”

 

Hanzo gave a single nod, his only reaction to her words and her gaze. Agent Pharah regarded him for a few seconds more. “I will say this, though,” she said at last. “Jesse’s been pretty honest about how he treated you, and I think a former yakuza boss who tried to murder his brother in cold blood would’ve taken advantage of a broken wrist and knee to do all sorts of terrible things, but you didn’t. I’m going to take both that and the good work you’ve done since then as a sign of your intentions.” Her eyes sharpened. “But don’t make me regret it.”

 

Hanzo nodded once more.

 

Agent Pharah nodded back. “Now you.”

 

He tilted his head slightly. “I’m sorry?”

 

“If I get to be blunt, you do, too,” she responded. “So if you have anything to say--warnings, threats, ‘stay out of the barn lest I destroy you’, now’s your chance.”

 

Hanzo stood nonplussed for a moment before he shook his head.

 

“Nothing?” she pressed, frowning.

 

“Nothing,” he confirmed.

 

“Hmm.” Agent Pharah looked skeptical, but she shrugged. “Well, you’ve got until Zenyatta and Torbjörn get back from patrol to think of some,” she said with a light teasing edge as she began to walk again, aiming to go behind the houses. “There’s got to be something a former yakuza boss doesn’t want us to see in his secret base.”

 

Hanzo rolled his eyes, since she was slightly ahead and could not see it.

 

Agent Pharah asked him a few questions about the houses’ layout and construction, mainly, it seemed, to find if there were any crawl spaces or attics or the like wherein anything or anyone could hide, but besides a small space under the roofs that was stuffed full of insulation foam, there was nothing of the sort. She led him back around the eastern house just when a dark moving shape became visible down the road to the south. Both of them reached into their pockets simultaneously and pulled out binoculars, though hers looked far more advanced.

 

Hanzo’s sufficed, however, to identify a bulky heavy-duty hovercycle towing an antigrav trailer, with the faintly comic image of Agent Torbjörn steering with Agent Zenyatta sitting behind with his skeletal hands clasping his shoulders firmly since Agent Torbjörn’s waist was far too low--but it was not enough for Hanzo to avoid a creeping dread at the sight of the Omnic monk.

 

“Good,” muttered Agent Pharah as she lowered the binoculars with a satisfied look. “Good. If Vishkar was planning to attack, they should have done it before Tor placed his turrets. Now they’ll have to get through them with the Orca providing air support.” She beckoned at Hanzo and they returned to the driveway while Hanzo tried to shake off his dread and find some sort of equilibrium.

 

The cowboy and Agent Mei were on either side of the entrance to the western house, the cowboy casually leaning against the wall while Agent Mei stood almost at attention. They were speaking in low voices while the cowboy was tapping away at his comm. He looked up as Agent Pharah approached. “Everything lookin’ okay?”

 

“Ayup,” replied Agent Pharah, imitating the cowboy’s accent. Returning to a more formal tone, she said, “Tor and Zen are almost back. Have the drones found anything?”

 

The cowboy shook his head, smiling slightly. “Not a thing. So far, so good--if this is a Vishkar operation, the signs are pointin’ to a Trojan Horse approach, which we can work with just fine.” He looked past Agent Pharah at Hanzo. “Thing with the Trojans, they should’ve let the horse be for a day or three, just t’see if there was anything weird about it, like someone inside needin’ a bathroom break or t’make a run t’the store. So that’s what we’d like t’do here, now that we got a defensive perimeter--with your permission, of course.”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow. “My permission?”

 

“Well, yeah, this is your--’homestead’,” said the cowboy with a brief and strangely mirthful look flitting across his face before he sobered and looked expectantly at Hanzo.

 

Hanzo shook his head. “I do not own this place in any capacity whatsoever, but even if I did, this site has been compromised. We should abandon it and go elsewhere.”

 

“Not until we figure out how they found you,” said Agent Pharah firmly. “If we leave before then, they’ll just follow us and compromise the next site.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips, but it was true--it would have been difficult to find him here (he hoped), so it stood to reason that someone with the resources to do so would also be able to continue tracking him and possibly have an even easier time of it now that so many new targets--one the size of the Orca--had presented themselves. He nodded reluctantly. “Very well. How long do you estimate it will take to interrogate her?”

 

The cowboy exchanged looks with Agent Pharah and Agent Mei before shrugging. “A few days. Maybe a couple of weeks. It depends on how much info she’s got and how much can be verified and where we decide t’go from there. Could all get cut short by an attack, of course, but--two weeks maximum is what I’d say.”

 

Hanzo’s heart sank. The idea of staying so long in a site compromised by either a powerful or unknown enemy--or both--was anathema. If he had been alone, Hanzo would have stowed away on a ferry or a cargo ship and been in Russia or halfway to Korea or China by now, where he could regroup, analyze the likely ways he might have been discovered, and moved accordingly. As things stood now, with so many unknowns, he might have abandoned all hope of ever returning to Ainu-Mosir--perhaps he had retreated too far into isolation, and with no other people to lose himself amongst had only managed to lay all his movements bare to observers. If that was true, then all the work he had put into both caches and all his stashes was lost.

 

But now he was anchored in place by Overwatch, a sitting duck waiting to see if the hunters that had tracked him down would choose to take the shot, so he could only nod with as neutral an expression as he could muster.

 

The cowboy bit his lip before opening his mouth to say something, but Agent Mei spoke up.

 

“Wait,” she exclaimed, her brows furrowing together. “If--after we’re done, you’re going to abandon this place, aren’t you?”

 

“Of course,” he answered simply.

 

Agent Mei looked around at the surrounding buildings with disbelief etched in every feature. “And leave everything behind?” she asked, her voice slightly tremulous.

 

Hanzo frowned--Athena had assured him that she had told Overwatch as little as possible about the homestead. Unless that assurance had been broken in the aftermath of the Vishkar agent’s arrival, he could not imagine what Agent Mei thought he had here. “There is nothing here that cannot be easily replaced,” he said, speaking objectively and resolutely. “I have been forced to abandon caches before. It is inconsequential.” And it was true--the regret he was feeling at the prospect of fleeing this place, never to return, was due to the effort wasted and his sentimentality, nothing more. It was his sentimentality especially that was making the regret so needlessly intense--he spent more uninterrupted time here than anywhere else, true, but he had other caches, and they offered similar amounts of safety and had spare parts for his weapons and training equipment and other essentials. Everything else was superfluous.

 

And ultimately unmerited, he thought darkly, glancing at the western house. Things like music and habituating feral cats to his presence and his other hobbies were revealed for the frivolities they were now that his brother was here.

 

Agent Mei set her face determinedly. Hanzo could guess what she was going to say and prepared to downplay any need for it--

 

\--but it was the cowboy who said, “Well, we got plenty of room in the Orca. We can get some of your stuff packed and shipped out at least.”

 

Thrown off-guard, Hanzo did not recover enough to reply before a faint whirr announced the arrival of Agents Torbjörn and Zenyatta. The cowboy straightened from his casual pose and went to meet them as they pulled up next to the other hovercycle, followed by Agent Pharah. Agent Mei stayed where she was, and Hanzo seized on the fact that she and the cowboy had been standing a kind of guard duty as an excuse to remain as well, going to stand where the cowboy had been. Agent Mei smiled at him and nodded in what he supposed was an encouraging manner, but he felt rather caught between his brother inside the house and his--”master”--out here.

 

His continued wish to flee into the mountains was becoming rather petulant at this point, but no less strong.

 

Soon the cowboy came walking back, followed by the other three agents. Agent Torbjörn was wearing the same red-and-silver body armor as before, but the Omnic monk was wearing camo fatigues--camo fatigues that had been tailored into a passable facsimile of the religious garb he had worn when Hanzo had met him, complete with a long loincloth and corded belt fashioned out of the coarse, tough fabric.

 

It was--more than slightly ridiculous, in Hanzo’s opinion, but he gave no sign of it as the cowboy came up. “Alright, looks like we are go for breakin’ radio silence,” he said. “Lemme just check on our ‘guest’ before I make the call.”

 

He tapped on the storm panels--Hanzo thought he caught a deliberate pattern of _dah dit dit dit, dit dah dah_ \--before he slid them open and cracked open the door behind. “Everythin’ lookin’ okay in here?”

 

“For sure,” answered Agent D.Va from within. “How about out there?”

 

The cowboy shrugged. “Looks good so far. I’m gonna put in a call t’HQ--is there any message you need me t’pass along, Ms. Vaswani? Or anything you need from us?” If the Vishkar agent answered verbally, it was too soft for Hanzo to hear, but the cowboy nodded. “Alright, then. You guys sit tight, we’ll be back in a few.” He closed up the entrance and said, “Mei and Zen,  stand guard. The rest of us’ll start plannin’ out our stay.”

 

“Understood,” said the Omnic monk before bowing his head slightly at Hanzo. “Greetings, Shimada-san. I hope you are well?”

 

Hanzo returned the bow. “Yes. Thank you,” he said in a clipped voice. “And yourself?”

 

“Very well,” said the Omnic monk smoothly as he moved to take position by the entrance. “Thank you for extending your hospitality to us for this mission. If destiny is kind, this may be a nice change of pace.”

 

Hanzo did his best not to purse his lips, but the idea of the Omnic monk treating this as some sort of visit to Hanzo’s home was vexing.

 

“It’d be better for us t’do this under cover,” interjected the cowboy. “Which garage you want us in?”

 

The smaller garage had more room, so Hanzo gestured silently at it and led the way, unlocking and lifting the door and immediately going to power up his hovercycle’s antigrav and shove it as close to the wall as possible. He took the opportunity to plug it in after he allowed it to settle to the ground once more--now that there were multiple Overwatch hovercycles to keep charged, his would be the lowest priority, so he must charge it while he could.

 

The cowboy and Agents Pharah and Torbjörn followed him in, with Agent Pharah closing the garage door behind them. The cowboy pulled out his comm and, pulling off the glove on his flesh hand, scanned his handprint and tapped away at the screen for about half a minute before the screen flashed.

 

“Report, Agent McCree,” boomed Winston, his voice deeper and louder than usual.

 

“We’re green across the board, commander,” said the cowboy briskly. “All the patrols are in and the drones have completed their scans. As far as we can tell, nobody’s listenin’ in or watchin’ us. Torbjörn’s set up defenses at the entrances and Tracer’s keepin’ station at the evac point. We’re ready to activate the Orca’s subsystem and begin settin’ up basecamp on your order.”

 

After a few moments, Winston grunted. “Permission granted. Coordinate your defenses with Agent Shimada and adjust accordingly if needed. Once you’re done, report back and we’ll start digging. Understood?”

 

“Understood, sir. McCree out.” The cowboy waited for the commlink to cut, then ordered, “Athena, go ahead and transfer command protocols to the Orca and open a channel to Tracer.”

 

“Acknowledged,” said Athena. “Command protocols transferred.”

 

“Heya!” chirped the cheerful voice of Agent Tracer. “What’s going on down there?”

 

“Nothing much, Tracer,” said the cowboy. “You’re guardin’ command central now, so stay sharp. We’ll be comin’ back t’start gatherin’ supplies in a few though.”

 

“Right-o! See you soon!”

 

“Alright,” said the cowboy as he cut the link and looked around at all assembled. “Now that we’re reasonably sure that Vishkar’s not gonna attack right away, let’s do a quick review of our defenses t’see if there’s any holes t’patch up or if Agent Shimada knows better places t’put shit. Then we’ll start bringin’ down supplies. Agreed?” Agents Pharah and Torbjörn nodded, the former looking attentive while the latter looked somewhat bored. The cowboy looked to Hanzo as well and did not continue until he got a nod from him as well--which was odd, but given his behavior earlier--

 

Setting his comm on the ground, the cowboy brought up a 3D topographic map of the depression. He and Agent Torbjörn marked down the positions of both the Orca and the turrets the engineer had placed in both entrances to the depression. “They’re automated antipersonnel cannons,” explained Agent Torbjörn to Hanzo’s questioning look as he added red stars to the map. “They’ll lock onto anything that moves and has a heat signature and give it a proper greeting on our behalf.”

 

“Anything?” asked Hanzo with a slight frown.

 

“Anything, but this isn’t a battlezone--yet--so they’re on sentry mode. They must get authorization from me or Winston before they open fire, but keep yer comm on yer person at all times. That’s how they’ll know that yer an ally.”

 

Hanzo’s frown deepened at the term, and he glanced at the cowboy, catching a similar glance from him before they both looked away.

 

Soon enough a sort of planning session began as the Overwatch agents brought Hanzo up to speed with their defenses and intentions. The Orca was currently sitting on the northern edge of the depression. They had selected another spot fairly close by on a dry streambed that led down from the summit of Mount Tuk-a-chi for the Orca to relocate once all the supplies for Overwatch’s stay had been unloaded, which Hanzo confirmed was as good a place as they were likely to find to keep the enormous vehicle hidden. In the event of a Vishkar attack, Overwatch would retreat there at once and evacuate, taking the Vishkar agent with them if they could. Until then, its computer systems would be acting as a more powerful security subsystem than Hanzo’s and would be controlling what was virtually a small fleet of solar-powered drones that would keep the entire depression under surveillance, including the mountains along its perimeter. Agent Torbjörn would also place turrets around it, but both he and Agent Tracer would be residing there for the duration of the mission as a first and last line of defense in the event of an attack.

 

The rest of the agents would be residing here, in the homestead.

 

“We’ll have three shifts,” explained the cowboy as he zoomed the 3D model to focus on the two houses, two garages, and barn. “Me and Pharah, Zenyatta and Mei, Genji and D.Va. Eight hours on guard duty, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for miscellaneous duties and or freetime. Me and Pharah will be in charge of the interrogation, but Genji’s got some interrogation experience and Zenyatta says he’s got some ideas that might help our guest open up. Regardless, _everyone_ should be as friendly and accommodatin’ as possible--if she’s for real, she needs t’feel like this wasn’ a huge mistake, and if she’s not, she might form an unexpected bond with someone that we’ll be able to use t’our advantage anyway. Either way, be nice. If you got a question about what’s permissible or not, ask me, Pharah, or Athena.”

 

Hanzo waited until the cowboy paused before asking, “What shift will I belong to?”

 

“You’re a wild card,” responded the cowboy with a lopsided smile. “Best way t’describe you would be as a quartermaster of sorts. This is your turf, so we’ll put stuff where you say t’put it, sleep where you tell us t’sleep, coordinate with Athena and Torbjörn t’strengthen and patch up the perimeter, and act as an extra guard whenever we need one--during our guest’s walkabouts, for example.”

 

“Walkabouts?”

 

The cowboy nodded. “Overwatch adheres to the Enhanced Geneva Convention when it comes t’the treatment of prisoners, and that includes makin’ allowances for exposure t’the great outdoors, mental and physical exercise, et cetera. We’ve brought along some of those ‘freeform physical restraints’ that allow free movement unless she steps out of bounds, then they’ll activate and she’ll keel over until someone gets t’her. _That_ means that over time as she plays ball with us, we can gradually extend the bounds as a reward for cooperation--but we gotta watch her closely once that includes things like ‘goin’ outside’. If she’s here on a factfindin’ mission for Vishkar, that’d be the time for ‘em t’swoop in and recover her.”

 

Hanzo listened with growing disquiet. It must have shown despite his best efforts to conceal it, because the cowboy bit his bottom lip for a moment before he shrugged. “Hey, this is pretty much how it all went down when Overwatch recruited _me_ ,” he said with a twisted smile. “And it turned out pretty good for all concerned, I reckon.”

 

“That’s debatable,” snorted Agent Pharah with a roll of her eyes. As the cowboy feigned hurt, raising a hand to his chestplate, she turned to Hanzo. “ _If_ we start letting her outside, I think those ‘miscellaneous duties’ and that ‘wild card’ will include a reinforced perimeter, don’t you?”

 

Hanzo looked between the two agents, wondering if he was inadvertently wandering into a clash of personalities. In the end he settled on saying, “That would be a reasonable precaution,” and both Agent Pharah and the cowboy nodded in agreement, the cowboy somewhat more vigorously than merited.

 

The planning session went on for a few more minutes as the three Overwatch agents hammered out a tentative itinerary and supply list with occasional questions to Hanzo about different minutiae, but soon the cowboy surprised Hanzo again when he brought up the subject of lodging. The cowboy _asked permission_ for the agents to stay in the two houses, which Hanzo had thought was a given--where else would they stay? In the barn?--and once “permission” was granted, they turned to dividing themselves among the houses. “So I think we’ll have the ladies stayin’ with our guest,” he mused as he brought up a 3D rendering of one of the houses. “We’ll keep her in the main room, I think, and y’all can hammer out who gets the private room and who has t’share.”

 

Agent Pharah shrugged. “One out of three will always be on duty, so it’s hardly sharing.”

 

“True,” agreed the cowboy. “We’ll have a tougher time of it in the gentlemen’s hut. I think Genji and Zen were plannin’ on sharin’ no matter what, but I dunno if they’d want t’be in the main room or in a bedroom. Whichever they decide on, I’ll take the other.”

 

Hanzo immediately shook his head. “You will all take the bedrooms, naturally. I will sleep in the sitting room.”

 

The cowboy turned to him with a strange expression. “Naw, we won’ kick you out of your own bed.”

 

“I do not make a habit of sleeping in any particular place, so it does not matter,” said Hanzo quietly yet firmly. “I will sleep in the sitting room. It is where I spent the night during the typhoons, so my bedding is already there.”

 

“Naw, y’know what, I’ll just--”

 

The cowboy was cut off by Agent Pharah placing a hand on his shoulder. “Hospitality is sacred, Jess,” she said with a small but slightly ironic smile. “And you said we’d sleep where he told us to sleep, right?”

 

Hanzo could not fathom what her motivations were, but if she thought he was giving up a private bedroom out of hospitality, she was largely incorrect--it was simply a matter of seniority. But he would accept her aid if it ended the debate, and her words seemed to convince the cowboy to drop the subject, albeit reluctantly and with one last parting shot.

 

“Alright--but you’re welcome to it when I’m not usin’ it,” he muttered.

 

After that there were only a few more details to sort out before the planning session ended and they all headed out to put their plans into action. As they went, the cowboy produced the “freeform physical restraints” off his ammunition belt, which were a set of four cuffs, two for the wrists and two for the ankles. “If she goes out of bounds, the anklecuffs’ll automatically bind t’each other,” he explained as he and Hanzo returned to the western house. “Since she’s down an arm, we’ll clip the other t’her beltloop. It won’ do as good a job, but it’ll be somethin’.”

 

“Is that what they did with you?” asked Hanzo, glancing at the cowboy’s prosthetic arm.

 

The cowboy’s lips thinned a little. “Naw, this--this happened way after that.”

 

Hanzo’s hope for some sort of conversation with the cowboy to discourage the Omnic monk from speaking to him died with the obviously uncomfortable subject, but when he came into sight Hanzo’s attention would almost certainly have been caught anyway--the Omnic monk was _floating._ His legs were crossed in lotus, his hands palm-up in chin mudra on his knees, head slightly bowed, and all floating thirty or forty centimeters off the ground.

 

Agent Mei still stood at attention on the other side of the door. She smiled at their approach and relaxed with a small wave. Her movements seemed to stir the Omnic monk, his head lifting and swiveling to meet them. Hanzo found himself wishing once more that he had a more expressive face--the minimalist eyes were lacking.

 

“Okay, we’ve got a gameplan,” the cowboy announced. He swiftly gave an abridged version to the two agents and sent Agent Mei to go with Agents Pharah and Torbjörn and begin ferrying supplies from the Orca on the hovercycles. He ordered Zenyatta to keep guarding the entrance, which the Omnic monk acknowledged with a nod, before he knocked on the storm panels and slid them open and stepped inside the house, motioning at Hanzo to follow.

 

“Hey guys, hello Ms. Vaswani,” he said as he entered. “Everything’s looking good so far, so we’re gonna go ahead and hunker down and start settin’ up some creature comforts for our stay. That includes these for you, Ms. Vaswani,” he said, displaying the restraints to the Vishkar agent. She was still sitting in the far corner, one blanket discarded but the others still wrapped over her legs and underneath her. Genji was in the same corner Hanzo had spent the night, sitting crosslegged in a disturbing mirror of the Omnic monk outside. Agent D.Va, on the other hand, was lounging in the kitchen, leaning onto the counter with her elbows, her face cupped in her hands. “These should be a lot more comfy than the ropes. On behalf of Overwatch, let me apologize for restrictin' your mobility that way, but circumstances didn’ allow for any different, I’m afraid.”

 

The Vishkar agent shook her head slightly. “It was unnecessary,” she said with a note of defiance, “but I understand why that would not be obvious.” She eyed the cuffs with a frown. “You will continue to limit my movements?”

 

“Yep,” said the cowboy simply. “These’ll allow for free movement, but only within this building--for now. If you try t'leave or become violent, they’ll snap together and you’ll take a nasty fall.” He paused. “Still better than ropes, though, right?”

 

Hanzo suddenly noticed that Agent D.Va was staring at him with an expression that could be called suspicious at best, but with a distinct undercurrent of anger.

 

“I suppose,” said the Vishkar agent with a small sigh. “You may proceed.”

 

“Thank ye kindly,” the cowboy said with a smile. “Would you prefer that Agent Song put them on?”

 

A pause. “Yes,” she said quietly.

 

“No problem. Song?”

 

Agent D.Va came around the corner and took the restraints from the cowboy. She knelt by the Vishkar agent and flipped the blanket off her legs, revealing the rope wrapped around the Vishkar agent’s ankles. Agent D.Va paused and glanced almost imperceptibly at Hanzo, her eyes dark with ill-concealed anger, before she began to undo the knot and unwind the rope.

 

The cowboy waited until Agent D.Va locked the anklecuffs on before he announced, “We’ll just get y’all some chow real quick and then we gotta lotta work t’do. Agent Shimada?” Despite facing Hanzo, the cowboy’s eyes were on the Vishkar agent as he said Hanzo’s name, thus both he and Hanzo caught the small spark of shock that crossed her face before she shuttered her face.

 

Hanzo did not permit himself to frown, but the implications were worrisome yet unclear.

 

The cowboy had Hanzo bring out cans of food for all three people--it was a bit of a shock for Hanzo that Genji required something to eat--and leave them on the counter before the two men began carrying out the boxes containing the windmill parts. It was somewhat of a relief when they got to the last one--Genji did not speak the entire time but was a huge presence all the same, looming in the corner despite sitting on the floor. Agent D.Va’s expression did not improve all the while--she continued to send Hanzo suspicious looks that bordered on venomous whenever he entered the room. The Vishkar agent, on the other hand, simply rearranged herself to sit crosslegged as well, her back still pressed against the wall, though she did eye the boxes with some curiosity.

 

Hanzo was happy to shut the door on the whole scene once they had the last box, but the heavy and close feeling of his brother’s presence followed him like a specter, magnified still further by the sight of his master floating by the entrance. It was with some relief that Hanzo and the cowboy broke open the boxes to reveal the lattice girders, turbines, and vanes covered in photovoltaic surfacing, and Hanzo was soon losing himself in the familiar task of partially assembling the components until they were big enough to be handed up to the roof--despite the entirely unfamiliar presence of an assistant.

 

The cowboy, either sensing Hanzo’s mood or simply uninterested in conversation, said little as they worked. He asked the occasional question but mostly followed Hanzo’s lead by sight alone. The work proceeded much faster than Hanzo was accustomed to, even beyond having an extra human to work in concert with him--the wrenches in the boxes sat untouched, rendered unnecessary by the cowboy’s prosthetic arm.

 

All the while, though, Hanzo was waging a war within himself, fighting the anxiety and dread spawning in his gut and trying to swirl upwards into his chest to crowd around his heart and lungs. For the first little while he could not help glancing far too often at the western house, anticipating the sudden appearance of either his brother or the Omnic monk at any inopportune moment--it was not as though Genji had ever taken his duty to the Shimada-gumi seriously, and his cavalier behavior towards Overwatch’s strike commander while in India--at least, before the situation had deteriorated due to Hanzo--led him to believe that Genji might still think little of leaving Agent D.Va to watch the Vishkar agent and wander away once he was bored.

 

Perhaps the Omnic monk would prevent that, though. _He_ seemed fairly self-controlled, if still blunt.

 

There were plenty of windows for Genji to sneak out of, though.

 

Hanzo and the cowboy were regularly interrupted in their work by the arrival of Agent Pharah and Mei with supplies. Much like Hanzo’s hovercycle, some were carried in saddlebags strapped to the hovercycles’ sides, but much more were carried in the small antigrav trailer that Agent Mei towed behind her on the bulkier hovercycle. Every time they arrived, Hanzo and the cowboy helped in unloading everything, with all the Overwatch agents deferring to Hanzo in deciding where they should be placed. Most of it was, predictably, food, MREs from the Fuerzas Armadas like the ones Hanzo had eaten in Niigata with others from other militaries mixed in. Almost all of them managed to fit in the empty cupboards and cabinets in the kitchens--with eight people to feed, they were filled almost to capacity for the first time, perhaps, since the Omnium had turned red.

 

By the time the food was put away and Agents Pharah and Mei had left for more disparate items, Hanzo and the cowboy had progressed to mounting the windmills’ towers on the roofs. The wind came predominantly from the west, so Hanzo had installed anchor points on both the western house and western garage, along with connections that joined with the solar panels’ wiring. With optimum wind speeds the windmills could produce another two kilowatts each, greatly increasing the amount of power available. The sheltering effect of the surrounding mountains meant that the wind was often less than optimal, but not as much as one might expect. They were especially useful at night, of course, which was the main reason the cowboy had insisted on erecting them as quickly as possible when Hanzo mentioned them during the planning session--the hovercycles would especially be in need of recharging, and the windmills would go a long way towards making that happen as quickly as possible.

 

Hanzo took much of the rooftop work to himself--the cowboy had offered with polite insistence to come up, but Hanzo conveniently forgot to mention the ladder in the western garage, and the cowboy had apparently assumed that he did not possess one when Hanzo simply scrambled up the side of the western house. The cowboy was thus limited to passing up or tying rope around components for Hanzo to haul up. The wrenches found use at last as Hanzo tightened the nuts and washers into place one-by-one, shimmying up higher and higher with each section until the wind was whipping at his face and ponytail and the tower swayed ominously under his weight, swinging him back and forth ten meters in the air--but the steel held firm, no matter how much the cowboy grimaced on the ground below.

 

Finally, Hanzo dropped down from locking the turbine into place, the vanes spinning in the wind with a barely-perceptible low-pitched whine. After a quick check at the fusebox to make sure that the power was being delivered to the homestead’s power grid, he and the cowboy were about to proceed to the western garage when Agent Pharah and Mei arrived, this time laden with camping and sleeping supplies--camping stoves, sleeping bags, toiletries--and weaponry.

 

To Hanzo’s surprise, the bulkiest of the weapon supplies belonged to Agent Mei. She asked him to help her with a crate that was surprisingly heavy, and they took it to the eastern house for security reasons. Every so often something metallic clunked and thudded inside the crate--it sounded like something rolling more than anything else.

 

Agent Mei began to explain, unprompted, once they were inside the eastern house. “Cryogenic fluid,” she said in a low voice as they placed the crate in a corner of the sitting room next to Hanzo’s bedroll. “For the endothermic blaster I designed. I’ve been making good progress with it--I actually took some inspiration from hardlight projections, even though I can’t get anywhere near the same resolution. The only downside is how heavy it all is!” She lightly kicked the crate with mock irritation, smiling widely throughout.

 

“I see,” mused Hanzo. He had finally managed to read over her personnel file during the typhoons--Agent Mei had led a surprisingly complicated life, culminating in a development of cryogenic technology that sounded revolutionary. He was curious to see her weapon in action, but unless Vishkar attacked it was unlikely.

 

“Sorry about my shoes,” Agent Mei said suddenly, recapturing Hanzo’s attention. She was frowning at her feet and looking around at the carpet. “I wish we weren’t here on a mission--we’re going to completely ruin the floors by the time we’re done.”

 

“Think nothing of it, Agent Mei,” he replied, trying to ignore the faint outlines of his own footsteps. “It does not matter what happens here now.”

 

Instead of looking placated, Agent Mei’s face scrunched up slightly, and she visibly fought to regain control of it. “Oh, I--I know,” she said after a few moments. “It’s just--you’ve obviously put a lot of effort into this place. The least I’d like to do is--respect that. I’m sure the others would agree.”

 

He shrugged and drifted towards the door. “I have always been prepared to leave this place at a moment’s notice,” he said, aiming to sound nonchalant. “It was inevitable that I would lose a cache again, and it just so happens to be this one, that is all.”

 

Behind him, Agent Mei murmured, “Yeah. I guess.” Hanzo turned slightly, and to his surprise she had moved to the piano--the fallboard was lowered over the keys, and she was brushing her fingers across it. She inspected her fingertips--for dust, he realized belatedly--before she turned and started at the sight of him looking. She forced a smile that was about as convincing as Agent Tracer’s and said with equally false brightness, “Well, I think two or three more trips will be everything. I better go see if Fareeha is ready to go!” She hurried past him without another word, leaving Hanzo to look after her with slight puzzlement. He had thought _his_ sentimentality was absurdly strong, but Agent Mei’s was giving him a run for his money.

 

Given her bio, it was remarkable she possessed any at all.

 

When he caught up with her, he saw to his chagrin that the cowboy had enlisted Agent Pharah to give him a boost up to the roof of the western garage. Her strong frame was not the least bit deceiving--he was standing on her shoulders, but she was apparently supporting him with little trouble, even to the point of shifting to account for the slight wobbles of the antigrav trailer she stood on. As soon as he caught a handhold on the roof’s eaves, she even took ahold of his boots, spurs jingling, and shoved him up, prompting a grunt of surprise from him as he clumsily took advantage of the sudden motion to hoist himself up.

 

“Hup! Okay, there we go,” he rumbled as his legs disappeared.

 

“You okay up there, old man?” Agent Pharah called after him tauntingly.

 

“I’m _fine,_ Miss Only-Five-Years-Younger’n-Me,” he shot back, his head reappearing over the edge of the roof, though his face was shadowed by his hat. It was stuck to his head even in the stiff wind, as in Byans. “Go on and git if all you’re gonna do is slander me.”

 

“‘Kay,” she said dismissively, “but has the flaw in your plan occurred to you yet?”

 

“What flaw?” he asked suspiciously, cocking his head.

 

“How’re you going to get down, genius?”

 

“Jumpin’,” he said, as though it was obvious. “Just like Agent Shimada there--unless, of course, he’s kind enough t’go get the ladder I just _know_ he’s hidin’ around here somewhere.”

 

All three agents looked at Hanzo.

 

He resisted the urge to shrink away, but his traitorous face heated slightly under their scrutiny, despite the slight smiles all of them wore.

 

“I will go fetch it,” he said, voice carefully neutral. Agent Mei broke into a grin while Agent Pharah and the cowboy gave two identical-sounding snorts.

 

Agents Pharah and Mei had left by the time Hanzo was carefully threading the ladder through the garage’s side entrance and setting it against the wall. The cowboy watched while sitting on the edge of the roof, his legs dangling, looking relaxed and casual despite being fully exposed. “There, now,” he said when Hanzo finished adjusting the ladder’s length. “Now things’ll go even faster.”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo as he went to get the base of the lattice tower.

 

When he came back, the cowboy was standing and turning slowly in place, as though scanning the surroundings. Hanzo almost dropped the cage-like lattice to dash to Storm Bow leaning against the wall nearby, but the cowboy cut him off by saying, “Y’know, this is the dream.”

 

He was speaking too loudly to be talking to himself, but Hanzo did not know how he was expected to respond.

 

“I got me a couple of hideyholes myself,” continued the cowboy, stopping to look at the far-off peak of Tuk-a-chi, the volcanic summit crowned with a cape of white extending almost down into the valley that led into the depression. “But none of ‘em got quite the view you managed t’snag.”

 

Hanzo began to climb the ladder, holding the lattice pressed against his side with one arm. “For a little while,” he replied at last when he got to the top and the cowboy looked down at him. He offered the lattice to him, but the cowboy seemed to hesitate before reaching out for it.

 

“Yeah.” As Hanzo passed him the wrenches, the cowboy added, “I messaged Winston about storin’ your stuff at the Watchpoint. I figured there’s plenty of room, and he agrees--you’re welcome t’bring as much as we can fit in the Orca.”

 

Hanzo shook his head. “There is nothing here that cannot be replaced. Thank you for your concern.”

 

The cowboy worried at his bottom lip for a moment. “Then--what if we bought some stuff off you?”

 

Hanzo froze for a moment and peered up at the cowboy. “What?”

 

“We could always use more supplies,” he said with a small shrug. “Even stuff like food can be a hassle t’get sometimes--I know Reinhardt’s startin’ t’complain about the MREs, so I know he’d be happy t’take the food you got here off your hands. That’s just an example, mind--you probably got other stuff we could make good use of. It’ll just sit here and rot otherwise.”

 

Hanzo nodded slowly. It was a sensible idea. He had been so taken by the habit of having to abandon everything as he had in the past to even consider that this time he could effectively “donate” it all instead.

 

And besides, he realized, his life belonged to Genji and to Overwatch by extension. Everything here really should be dedicated to their service anyway. The usually somber thought meant his efforts would not be as completely wasted as he thought in this case.

 

“Very well,” he said. “Most of my excess food supplies are already packed in containers. You may begin taking them to the Orca immediately, if you wish.”

 

The cowboy raised his hands. “Whoa there, there’s no hurry for the time bein’. How about first we take an inventory of this place? You’re the ‘quartermaster’ here, so that can be one of your first priorities. I’m the small arms quartermaster at the Watchpoint, so when I’m off guard duty I can help familiarize you with Athena’s catalog system. We can probably get that started tomorrow--how’s that sound?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips slightly, but there was no real reason to refuse and every reason to agree. Even the prospect of working so closely with the cowboy was remarkably inoffensive--his maddening comments earlier notwithstanding, the past few hours working together had gone smoothly, more so than Hanzo would ever have expected. Whatever the cowboy’s intentions were, they apparently included a desire for at least the appearance of a good working relationship--and so long as that continued Hanzo could feign the same.

 

And if he was actively working, he might have more excuses to avoid Genji and the Omnic monk.

 

The rest of the time it took to finish up the windmill was spent mostly in silence, with only a few words exchanged as the cowboy installed the tower. The lattice swayed much more under the cowboy’s weight, but he stubbornly refused to allow Hanzo to finish up, and Hanzo did not press the subject--if the tower was damaged, it would deny Overwatch two kilowatts of power during their stay but it would hardly matter in the long run.

 

In the end, the cowboy managed to install the turbine with only minor difficulties, though many of them came from the arrival of Agent Pharah.

 

“ _What_ the _hell_ are you doing up there?!” she yelled as she pulled up on the hovercycle. “Is that how you guys did the other one?!”

 

“‘Course!” the cowboy shouted back. “How did you think we did it?”

 

“I thought you guys did something _smart!”_

 

The verbal argument continued as Agent Pharah shimmied up the ladder and ordered Hanzo to help her brace the tower, though it hardly helped to stabilize it. Finally the cowboy climbed back down and they all descended the ladder, the argument only ending when Agent Mei firmly separated them by directing the cowboy to help Hanzo carry supplies into the eastern house while she shepherded Agent Pharah into the western.

 

Hanzo could readily believe that a sibling-like relationship existed between the two--but the familiarity of the argument brought a wave of memories that were all the more poignant with Genji so near, and he kept silent even as the cowboy kept mumbling under his breath.

 

“‘Too dangerous’, ‘break your neck’, ‘you’re not a skinny twink anymore’,” he grumbled. “How much you weigh, Agent Shimada? 80, 90 kilos? I’m only twenty or so more’n you, and that tower held _you_ just fine. If I were back in Blackwatch condition, maybe I’d be worryin’ some, but c’mon. As though she can talk, flyin’ around and nosedivin’ like she does.”

 

“She is a pilot, then?” asked Hanzo, more to distract himself than out of an genuine desire to know.

 

“Yeah,” said the cowboy distractedly as he deposited a crate by a bedroom door. “But she ain’ been in a cockpit for a while. She’s part of Helix’s Raptora division, so she’s out there courtin’ a broken neck every time she flies in one of those glorified jetpacks with a rocket launcher attached. If this’d all happened two weeks from now, she mighta been able t’bring her Mark VI along t’help, but we just barely opened discussions with Helix about becomin’ ‘subcontractors’ t’get some funds.” The cowboy stiffened slightly and lowered his voice, glancing at the door. “Apparently Helix had some trouble with the Anubis god program--it almost broke containment.”

 

Hanzo looked up sharply.

 

“Yeah,” said the cowboy, taking off his hat and running his fingers through his hair, his face troubled. “‘Reeha was part of the squad that managed t’shut it back down, but it was a close thing--she lost her captain along with a team of engineers that got sent in before her. Scariest part is, they still haven’ figured out how it got so close t’gettin’ out in the first place.”

 

“So they are looking for someone with more experience in these matters,” said Hanzo thoughtfully.

 

“Ayup,” said the cowboy with a humorless smile. “I dunno if you can call it a lucky break for us if it involves a god program.”

 

“Does this have anything to do with the Siberia Omnium reactivating?” asked Hanzo, his eyes narrowing.

 

The cowboy shrugged. “We don’ know. Yet.”

 

Hanzo nodded. The news of a god program nearly breaking out of its prison was--sobering. As the cowboy led the way back outside, Hanzo could not help looking northwest, shielding his eyes from the slowly setting sun. The Hokkaido Omnium lay only eighty kilometers away, but with two mountain ranges in the way and nothing of import to attract attention here, eighty kilometers had always seemed a reasonably safe distance.

 

But that could change.

 

Agents Pharah and Mei left on one last run, trying to beat the sun as it sank towards the western crest of the mountains. The cowboy returned to the western house to check on the Vishkar agent and her guards. Hanzo began to follow, more out of a lack of anything else to do than anything else, when his earpiece began to chime. He took out his comm and saw to his surprise that he was receiving a call from Agent Lúcio.

 

“Agent Shimada,” he said, capturing the attention of the cowboy, who looked back with raised eyebrows.

 

“Hey, man! How’s everything going?” Agent Lúcio sounded half-excited, half-worried. “Is everything looking okay? How’s everyone?”

 

“Everything appears to be going well, Agent Lúcio,” said Hanzo haltingly, placating the younger agent while simultaneously answering the question in the cowboy’s eyes.

 

The cowboy responded by smiling a little and rolling his eyes. “Can’t believe he convinced Winston t’allow personal calls,” he muttered, though with good humor. He jerked his head at the eastern house. “You can take it in there, Agent Shimada, I got this. I’ll stand guard with Zen ‘til ‘Reeha and Mei get back--we gotta switch off with Genji and Song soon anyway.” His eyes sharpened. “And eat while you’re in there--when did you last--aw, hell. Lúcio! Lúcio, make sure he eats while you’re talkin’, y’hear me?”

 

“Is that McCree?” asked Agent Lúcio. “What’d he say? ‘Make sure he--’ Wait, you haven’t been eating?!”

 

Hanzo winced. He had not eaten since breakfast the day before, but it was not an issue worth the cowboy or Agent Lúcio’s concern. “Thank you, Agent McCree,” he said while turning away. “No, Agent Lúcio, I have not had the opportunity yet, but there is time now.”

 

“Busy day?” said Agent Lúcio, laughing. “I bet! Where’s the Vishkar?” he asked, laughter disappearing in a flash. “Tell me you got some kind of bunker or vault to seal her into--nothing less’ll hold an architech!”

 

Hanzo waited to answer until he had retreated to the eastern house. Once inside, he bent down out of habit to begin taking off his feet, but he caught himself in time. “We are holding her under guard,” he said cautiously, distrustful of the commlink. “But that is all I believe I should say.”

 

“Yeah, man, no worries, I don’t really want to know,” said the agent almost bitterly. “Just don’t turn your backs on her, alright? Architechs don’t need much to tear you apart. Anyway! You’re getting food, right?”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo, moving through the hallway to the basement. Hanzo’s body, once attention was called to it, was crying out for water, and he doubted the bottles in the MREs would suffice.

 

“Good, good--hey, I was talking to Torbjörn earlier, he says you got a sweeter setup there than he expected. I wish I was there to see it, man, he was saying it’s better than the Watchpoint in some ways--way more isolated, way less people sniffing around, but I think he just likes the weather. It’s been really hot here lately.”

 

Hanzo hummed in reply as he went down the stairs and looked around for the water jug he had left down here the previous day. He supposed Ainu-Mosir’s climate might be similar to Scandinavia--far more than the Mediterranean, at any rate.

 

Agent Lúcio continued speaking as Hanzo found the jug and filled it at the water pump, keeping the jet fairly low to minimize the noise. “Tracer says she wants to come and visit, too, but she’d have to swap out with Fareeha--” Hanzo could not say he was disappointed. He could only hope that Agent Pharah’s involvement with the interrogation would prevent her from indulging Agent Tracer. “--dude, you’ve met her now, right? Isn’t she awesome? You gotta ask her to tell you about what she and McCree used to get up to, man, it is _hilarious._ Y’know how he used to be Deadlock? She found out about it and made him teach her how to hotwire a car, just so she could mess with her dad! He’d take her to the store or whatever, and she’d break away from him _just_ long enough to go and move the car somewhere else, and they’d go out and she’d act all confused and he’d call to have the car traced and there it was, on the other side of the parking lot! Drove him _crazy_ before her mom found out and figured out on the spot what she’d done, ha!”

 

Hanzo listened as he finished filling the jug and lugged it back up the stairs. He frowned as he did some mental calculations. Such practical jokes were not completely out of the purview of twenty-somethings--Genji had proven that, though in a decidedly more risqué fashion--but it really did seem like something a teenager would do. Had they met while Agent Pharah was young? The youngest she could have been if she met the cowboy after Overwatch rescued him was thirteen, but it seemed unlikely that a thirteen-year-old would be allowed to mingle with Blackwatch agents, or vice versa.

 

“Hello, brother.”

 

Hanzo stopped dead, sudden enough that the jug lurched forward as the water inside sloshed forward. Genji stood in the entrance, his silver carapace glinting in the low-angle, golden light from the unseen sunset. He cocked his head slightly. “May I come in?”

 

Hanzo blinked and shook himself, suddenly furious with himself. He should not be so surprised by the appearance of his brother--he had been in the homestead for nearly ten hours now. “Of course,” he said as evenly as he could.

 

“What’s that?” asked Agent Lúcio, cutting himself off.

 

“Excuse me, Agent Lúcio,” said Hanzo, gesturing stiffly at his ear. “G--Agent Genji was speaking to me.”

 

“Oh, hey! Put me on speaker, I wanna say hi!”

 

“Oh, you’re talking to Lúcio?” said Genji lightly as he stepped over the threshold, sounding pleased. “Hi, Lúcio!” he said in a loud voice.

 

Wincing slightly, Hanzo took his comm out of his pocket and fumblingly tapped at the screen one-handed, switching the audio from the earpiece to speakerphone. “There, Agent Lúcio.”

 

“Yo, Genji!”

 

“Yo,” replied Genji, walking up to Hanzo. His running lights flickered on, and Hanzo hoped that the involuntary twist of his lips at the sight and sound of them went unnoticed--as far as he could tell, Genji was looking down at the comm as Hanzo held it out. “What’s going on?”

 

“Nothing much, man, nothing much, all the excitement’s there with you!”

 

Genji scoffed. “If only. The most exciting part so far has been watching D.Va try to make conversation with the stone wall that is our guest.”

 

“Aw, tell her not to even try, Genji, she’s wasting her time.”

 

“Evidently,” replied Genji tossing his head back slightly. “One-word answers whenever possible, glaring, an obvious lack of proper socialization. Remind you of anyone, brother?”

 

Agent Lúcio laughed, but it died away rather quickly at the sound of Hanzo’s silence. It was not by choice--Hanzo was merely at a loss of what to say. Genji was being--

 

“So--you guys gonna be alright out there in the middle of nowhere?” Agent Lúcio ventured when the silence pressed on a few seconds too long.

 

“Oh, yeah,” said Genji easily, seemingly unaffected. “There’s even enough power for master, and we brought everything else we need--we’ve almost made this place into another Watchpoint.”

 

“Ha,” said Agent Lúcio with a smile in his voice, “If Hanzo won’t come to the Watchpoint, the Watchpoint will come to Hanzo, right?”

 

“That’s right,” affirmed Genji. “Watchpoint: Lite.”

 

“Ha!”

 

Hanzo set his jaw. He felt like an intruder in the conversation.

 

He held out the comm to Genji--who looked down at it and back up at Hanzo, the green line of his visor tilted. Hanzo’s lips thinned. “Take it,” he said quietly. “You have much to speak of, and I must prepare a meal.”

 

“Oh, oh! Dude hasn’t eaten, Genji, don’t let him hand me off and disappear!”

 

“You haven’t eaten?” said Genji with a trace of irritation as he took the comm at last. “Didn’t McCree let you take a break?”

 

Hanzo turned away, vastly more comfortable not looking his brother in the face, coward that he was. “I do not know if it occurred to him. It did not to me. It was important to assemble the windmills so that we have a minimum of power during the night.”

 

“So he hasn’t eaten either, then.” Genji’s voice softened considerably, and he even chuckled. “That’s been the biggest change from the old days. He used to be insufferable if he went more than two hours without eating. We’re not used to reminding him yet, but if we’ve got to remind both of you maybe we’ll get in the habit at last.”

 

Hanzo nodded absently as he set the jug on the counter and opened a cabinet to reveal an orderly stack of MREs. He wondered if he should offer one to Genji--but Genji called after him, “Hey, Pharah and Mei are back. You stay here and eat, I’ll go help unload. I’m leaving the comm on the table.” A click of the comm on the table was followed shortly after by the click of the door closing--but Genji did not slide the panels closed behind him, allowing the diffuse evening light to spill in through the large square window set into the door.

 

Hanzo stood stockstill, staring after him.

 

He sighed heavily and leaned against the counter, momentarily letting the full magnitude of the situation wash over him: Vishkar, Overwatch, the cowboy, the Omnic monk, and most of all, his brother.

 

If Hanzo won’t come to the Watchpoint, the Watchpoint will come to Hanzo.

 

How unfortunate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or Is It???
> 
> *writes down the words "Sombra Collective"*
> 
> *vibrates with excitement*
> 
> We're getting into some meat and bones plot now, guys.
> 
> I'm pleased to present more incredible fan art!!
> 
> First, by [TheLadyNina](https://ladyninadraws.tumblr.com/), who drew [this wonderful portrait of Hanzo playing the cello](https://ladyninadraws.tumblr.com/post/169826844981/afterdrop-by-claroquequiza-is-my-favourite) (which I can't wait to make happen in-story!), as well as [this short comic about Hanzo and Genji](https://ladyninadraws.tumblr.com/post/170555084731/based-off-of-a-reply-i-got-from-claroquequiza-on) in response to something she asked me on Tumblr!!
> 
> Second, by [StupidNames](http://stupidnames.tumblr.com/), who drew [this scene from Chapter 1 when McCree and Hanzo were meeting under the very best of circumstances!!](http://stupidnames.tumblr.com/post/170167886716/so-i-am-totally-in-love-with-afterdrop-by) She happened to draw it on my birthday, which was her birthday, too, so it had the most excellent timing!
> 
> And finally, another birthday gift from [Kitsune2022](http://kitsune2022-artish.tumblr.com/), [a lovely portrait of McCree with glorious glorious glorious long hair](http://kitsune2022-artish.tumblr.com/post/170137469127/so-claroquequiza-said-that-his-birthday-was) (with a subtle yet fabulous accessory)!!
> 
> Thank you all so much!!! I appreciate it!!!!
> 
> And thank you for reading and commenting!!


	18. Twenty-Five Hours

The next twenty-four hours were indeed unfortunate.

 

Allowing himself to contemplate the situation proved to be a mistake--or perhaps it was merely stepping into the unlit interior of the house. Either way, the fatigue from the past two days’ physical activity and the sleepless night chose that moment to crash over him like a wave, washing away his hunger and thirst and leaving behind a deadened feeling in his limbs as he leaned against the kitchen counter.

 

Were Agent Lúcio not still on the line, Hanzo might have left the MREs and water where they were and simply burrowed into his blankets, but unfortunately--

 

“Hello? _Hello?_ ” His voice floated in from the sitting room, with an obvious note of worry. “You still there?”

 

He took a deep breath to bolster himself against his sudden exhaustion. “Yes,” he called back, wincing at how drained he sounded even to himself.

 

“Dude,” said Agent Lúcio, softening his tone as much as he could without lowering his volume, “You okay?”

 

Hanzo tried to rally himself. “Yes. My apologies, Agent Lúcio, I’m still in the kitchen,” he said as he turned back to the cupboard, willing himself to dredge up some energy--the last two days had not been _that_ long or challenging.

 

Agent Lúcio clicked his tongue, the odd sound sharp in the quiet interior of the house. “You sound exhausted, man. You gotta eat something before you fall over.”

 

Hanzo grit his teeth for a moment at the thought of food before forcing his jaw to relax. Agent Lúcio was right.

 

He took a single MRE from the cupboard.

 

Turning, he scowled at the water jug for a moment before he left it behind as he trudged back into the sitting room--he was already going to be forcing himself to eat. The water bottle in the MRE were all he could stomach drinking.

 

He knelt at the table, shrugged Storm Bow off his shoulder onto the floor at his side, and mechanically tore off the black plastic encasing it. Flipping open the lid, he found exactly the same cans of COCIDO MADRILEÑO, ATÚN BLANCO, and the rest as in Niigata. He stared at the thoroughly unappetizing sight for a few moments before he stifled a sigh and picked up the first can.

 

Agent Lúcio stayed on the line while Hanzo ate--he was apparently taking the cowboy’s orders seriously enough to endure the heavy silence as Hanzo forced down the light meal. Hanzo half-heartedly assured him that there was no need, but the young agent insisted on “keeping him company” from the other side of the planet. Hanzo let it go, even though it was obvious that Agent Lúcio was exactly as bored as Hanzo would expect--at times he absently began to hum, though he always cut himself off after a few seconds. Perhaps he thought Hanzo preferred the silence, but in reality Hanzo was beyond caring about any noises he made. All that mattered was getting through the meal.

 

At last he swallowed one last dry mouthful of tuna and breadroll and said, “I am finished, Agent Lúcio. I believe I will go check if Overwatch needs any assistance,” as a way to release him from the call.

 

“I already asked, dude,” he replied instantly. “McCree says they’ve got everything covered, so you’re free to crash. Get some sleep, my man--Athena says you’ve been up for almost a day-and-a-half. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

 

Hanzo closed his eyes as Agent Lúcio ended the call. Sleep. He obviously needed it, but with one Vishkar and six Overwatch agents running around close at hand--plus however many unknown eyes watching the depression--the very last thing he wanted to do was succumb to his exhaustion, especially when the Overwatch agents could come traipsing in at any moment. He suspected Agent Mei, at least, would do everything in her power to avoid “inconveniencing” him--and it was a testament to his increasingly dark and sour mood that _that_ thought annoyed him as well, since she should not concern herself over his discomfort but likely would anyway--but she would need to access her ammunition. The cowboy, the Omnic monk, and Genji would need to come and go, of course. And neither Agent D.Va nor Agent Pharah struck him as the least bit reluctant to enter the “gentleman’s hut” as needed--or unneeded.

 

It was no better than if he were forced to fly around in the Orca for two weeks straight.

 

Except, he forcefully reminded himself, it certainly _was_ better. There was vastly more room, half of Overwatch and the Vishkar agent were in an entirely different building, and if something did happen, Athena and her fleet of drones and spyders would likely be able to warn him.

 

He had to deliberately emphasize those sorts of things to combat the apathy and cynicism threatening to overtake him--he recognized the downward spiral for what it was. It happened often enough out here in the isolated wastes. This was usually the one of the very, very few places where he could allow such spirals to run their course with little fear--

 

\--but not anymore.

 

He had to try to sleep. All attempts to ward it off would be hamstrung if he was weary.

 

He shuffled clumsily towards his blankets. He hardly paused when his dirty feet occurred to him, but he did not even consider taking them off--the threat of an attack was still far too high. Besides, what did it matter? His feet were dirty, the carpets were dirty, _he_ was dirty--what did dirty blankets matter? That was something to worry about tomorrow.

 

The threat of an attack also kept Hanzo from wrapping himself up as usual--he would be the last to be delayed by precious seconds entangled in his blankets. He folded himself in instead, ready to slip out at a moment’s notice, with Storm Bow, quiver, and jacket within half an arm’s reach.

 

He pressed up against the wall and lay facing the door, staring sullenly at the window in the door. The evening light was becoming increasingly red and faded as the unseen sun sank behind the mountains, painting the room, the crates, the piano, his cello case, his suitcase, and everything else in shades of reddish brown. He longed to shut the sliding panels, but he would not put it past at least some of Overwatch to interpret that as shutting them out as well, given the cowboy’s obsession with asking permission and Agent Mei’s misplaced deference.

 

Besides, he was slightly less likely to be disturbed by the sound of the door opening and closing alone than by the noise of the sliding panels.

 

Slightly.

 

He forced his eyes closed and tried to breathe his way into unconsciousness.

 

It was slow going.

 

He approached a hazy half-conscious state that he usually reached while hidden somewhere--while stowing away on a ship, perhaps, or while waiting for an installation to close for the day after sneaking in and finding a good blindspot in the guards’ patrols. He would be easily roused in this state, a fact he recognized, but his paranoia stubbornly refused to allow him to get closer to true sleep any faster than a slow, almost imperceptible crawl.

 

The occasional noise from outside did not help at all. A scrap of muffled conversation or a laugh managed to penetrate the house’s walls to disturb him from time to time. He was able to avoid snapping back to full attention--the time spent on the Orca was suddenly an advantage of sorts: he could already recognize most of the voices and laughter, so only Agent Pharah was giving him real trouble. She had a distinctive sound that was not yet familiar, and her voice more than anyone else’s clawed at his paranoia, stirring his instincts before he could talk them down again.

 

It is only Agent Pharah, he recited to himself. It is only Agent Mei. It is only Agent Pharah. It is only the cowboy. It is only Agent Pharah--again. It is only--Genji--

 

Genji.

 

He was coming in.

 

“--start the regular schedule starting at midnight, master.”

 

“Very well. Mei and I will be prepared.”

 

“Yeah, Mei’s probably already asleep. She’ll probably come and get _you,_ though--she’s like Mahathera, except she doesn’t have an internal chronometer--that _I_ know of, any--”

 

The door opened soon after Genji and the Omnic monk’s voices became intelligible. Hanzo forced himself to look as relaxed as possible, even opening his mouth a tiny amount, positioning his head to allow a thin line of spittle to dribble out--if his mouth had not just gone dry, of course.

 

At first it seemed to work. The conversation went on for a few moments after Genji stepped in--Hanzo nearly furrowed his brow and opened his eyes at the lack of noise from the Omnic monk. He remembered that he might be floating in the nick of time.

 

But Genji cut himself off, which could only mean he had spotted Hanzo.

 

After a few seconds, Genji said in a low voice, “Hanzo. What the _hell_ are you doing in--”

 

A glob of spit spilled from the corner of Hanzo’s mouth at last, running only a short distance before it stopped just short of his beard.

 

Genji paused. After a few moments, he gave a short sigh. “What is he doing in here?” he asked in an even softer voice, barely on the edge of hearing.

 

“Did you expect differently?” asked the Omnic monk with a small amount of amusement.

 

Genji was quiet for a few moments. “I thought--I thought he’d barricade himself somewhere.”

 

“He was probably too tired to do that tonight,” observed the Omnic monk. “We’ll have to keep an eye on him to see where he chooses to make his den tomorrow. Unless you order him not to, of course.”

 

“Master--” began Genji, sounding abashed.

 

“Come, my student--this is no place to talk.”

 

Genji said no more as he padded down the hallway, presumably led or followed by the noiseless Omnic monk. One of the bedroom doors opened and clicked closed.

 

Hanzo scowled. How dare the Omnic monk chastise Genji for exercising his right? Was this part of his strategy to reinforce his concept of “forgiveness”? What right did he have to--

 

He was wide awake again.

 

He could not tell how long it took to simmer back down. The sun had set and taken with it any indication of time, and he had left the comm lying out of reach on the table. After however long he managed to banish his irritation--

 

\--but only just in time to jolt awake when the door opened with no warning whatsoever.

 

He grabbed blindly at Storm Bow and his quiver before he registered the sight of nine pale blue dots arranged in a grid shining through the darkness.

 

They brightened just enough to reveal the Omnic monk, still dressed in his camo monkish garb, with one skeletal hand on the doorknob--and he was indeed floating, legs folded as though in meditation. “My apologies, Shimada-san,” he said, shaking his head. “I attempted not to disturb you.”

 

“Of course,” said Hanzo immediately, his voice thick and groggy, “Think nothing of it.” He set Storm Bow down and placed a single arrow back in his quiver. He lay back, chagrined at his aggressive display, but at least the Omnic monk had been far away for this encounter. If he had approached Hanzo--

 

“Agent McCree will be returning shortly,” the Omnic monk said. “But he will likely give you some warning of his approach.”

 

Hanzo nodded curtly.

 

The Omnic monk eased his way out, shutting the door behind. A belated blast of cold air swept across the floor and over Hanzo, chilling his face. He lay in the darkness with his eyes half-open, waiting for the cowboy to come back before attempting to rest again.

 

He supposed he must have been at least somewhat successful at actually sleeping, though--the time between Genji and the Omnic monk coming in and the Omnic monk reporting for guard duty seemed to have passed by a little too quickly for him not to have been dozing.

 

Soon enough he heard the clinking and jingling of the cowboy’s approach, and the door opened soundlessly. The cowboy cut an wide, imposing silhouette as he moved in the dark, though there were a few odd bulges collected around his waist and on his back--his sleeping supplies, perhaps.

 

It took Hanzo a few moments to realize that the cowboy’s boots had mysteriously gone silent as soon as the cowboy stepped indoors. He felt a surge of satisfaction to have confirmation that the cowboy could somehow control the noises his boots made at last. He would have to keep an eye on them to see if he could figure out if it was done through electronic means or some other way.

 

The cowboy moved slowly through the sitting room and into the kitchen. There were a few soft thuds, scraping noises, and pouring water in the next few minutes before the cowboy went down the hall and entered one of the bedrooms, leaving everything behind him silent and still.

 

Hanzo tried to buck up his spirits--the Omnic monk was out of the house and Genji and the cowboy were presumably sleeping. He could reasonably expect many hours uninterrupted by his “guests”.

 

The thought turned out to be somewhat invigorating rather than tranquilizing--a number of things occurred to him that he could do without having to endure the presence of Overwatch, not the least of which was some laundry when he shifted and became aware of grains of dirt rubbing between his artificial feet and the blanket. He was apparently rested enough to begin regretting not taking the time to at least wipe off his feet with a cloth--but the damage was done and could wait until morning.

 

He settled down as best he could and breathed away a few more hours, sometimes consciously, sometimes not.

 

At some point he realized that he had been consciously breathing for some time with no result, not even half-consciousness--and that might be a sign that he had gotten all the sleep he was going to get. He shifted and slowly sat up, wincing as the muscles in his thighs seized up slightly. He looked sightlessly around the darkened room, assessing his physical state and nodding to himself--he felt better than expected. He cast off his blankets, the cold enveloping him instantly, before he gathered them up in a loose ball tucked under one arm. He shuffled to the table to check the time--not a hint of light was coming from outside.

 

It was about ninety minutes before dawn. Glancing at the blankets, he checked the forecast as well, faintly thankful for the internet access that allowed for such a thing out here for once. There was no threat of precipitation: perfect for laundry.

 

Pocketing the comm, he hooked Storm Bow and his quiver over his shoulder, gathered clothes out of his suitcase and went down into the basement, treading as quietly as he could down the hall. If he was careful, he might have two hours or so before Overwatch began to stir.

 

He kept as quiet as possible in the echoing basement as he set Storm Bow and his quiver close by and gathered supplies for both laundry and a bath. He washed his hair first under the stream from the water pump to give it a headstart on drying, shampooing his hair while thawing out a little bit of coconut oil by sticking the bottle in his armpit. He combed the oil through the damp strands while he waited for a large plastic tub to partially fill under the water pump. When it sounded full enough, he shook the dirt out of the blankets, dropped them in the tub, rubbed them down with a bar of pink laundry soap, and spent a good amount of time kneading them against a glass washboard, paying particular attention to the areas that had been in contact with his feet. He wore thick rubber gloves to protect his hands from the worst of the icy water--combined with the chill in the basement, both were enough to largely keep him from sweating as he worked. After tipping the dirty water out to swirl down the drain set into the floor, Hanzo quickly rinsed the soap out before dumping out the rinse water and leaving the blankets wadded up in the tub.

 

Disrobing and soaping up a washcloth, he made quick work of the greasy, oily feeling clinging to most of his body--but not quick enough.

 

The faint jingling of spurs was his only warning a spare moment before the door at the top of the stairs squeaked open.

 

“Uh--Agent Shimada? You down there?”

 

He had not bothered to flip on the light when he came down--he could find his way around entirely by feel on such familiar territory.

 

So of course the light spilling down the stairway landed on him like a spotlight.

 

Hanzo cursed internally as he slapped the washcloth over his right shoulder with a dull _thwap!_ and turned to shield it from the light.

 

“W-whoo-ups! Sorry, there!” stammered the cowboy, and the light immediately narrowed to a thin strip. “Sorry, sorry! I just--sorry.”

 

Hanzo rolled his eyes. This was the purpose of having a “gentlemen’s hut”, was it not? It was not as though he had walked in on the Vishkar agent.

 

The cowboy stuttered for a few more seconds before falling silent, and the thin strip of light became even skinnier. Hanzo watched it with a sense of slight impatience. He had not expected the cowboy to be so skittish, especially after the communal bathroom in Niigata. Americans really could not deal with nudity in any form, could they?

 

“My apologies, Agent McCree,” he called up to the nearly closed door, trying to placate him. “The bathroom does not--”

 

“No, no, it’s fine, I shoulda knocked,” interrupted the cowboy with a self-conscious chuckle, speaking through the tiny crack of the door. “Ain’ nothin’ I haven’ seen before, but I shouldn’ come bargin’ in.” He took a deep breath. “I, uh--I just wanted to go over the schedule real quick, since you’re up. I got guard duty from 0800 to 1600--after that, I can help with the inventory. You can either wait ‘til I get done or Athena can help you out ‘til then. Sound, uh--sound good?”

 

“Very well,” answered Hanzo, brushing his fingers over the washcloth plastered over his shoulder to make sure it covered everything.

 

“Right, good, good. I’ll, uh--oh, hey! You get any breakfast yet?”

 

Hanzo’s first instinct was to say he had--but the only food he had access to were the MREs in the kitchen now that either the cowboy or Genji and the Omnic monk were sleeping among the food storage in the bedrooms, and the cowboy had been the last one to see the cupboards. He was sure a former black ops agent knew how to count. “No, but do not concern yourself, I will eat later.”

 

The cowboy did not speak or move for a few seconds. “‘Kay,” he finally said. “You want me t’put a couple MREs on the table for you, though? We both forgot about the whole eatin’ thing yesterday.”

 

Hanzo nodded a little more vigorously than strictly needed, eager to end the conversation--he was beginning to shiver a little from the freezing water trickling down his arm and side. “Yes, that will be fine. Thank you, Agent McCree.”

 

“Don’ mention it,” came the reply. The door finally clicked closed, plunging Hanzo into darkness. He immediately began hopping in place to get his blood moving as he whipped the washcloth off his shoulder and hurried to finish up--the sooner he was dry and clothed, the better.

 

Afterwards, dressed in a thick gi and hakama, a winterized version of his preferred attire, he threw some sturdy clothespins into the tub, listening to them strike the damp blankets with almost imperceptible wet thuds in the darkness before he shouldered his weapons and picked up the large tub, waddling a little under the awkward weight. He paused for a moment at the top of the stairs to gather himself to face Overwatch--the cowboy had slept nowhere near as long as he expected, a bare four and a half hours, if that.

 

Perhaps he had been foolish to expect a former child gangster and black ops agent to sleep well, though--the cowboy could very well have memories that prevented a good night’s sleep.

 

The light was on in the kitchen when Hanzo emerged, doing his best not to bump against the walls as he went down the hall. The cowboy was standing by the counter, two MREs open before him. His head was thrown back as he drained a small bottle of water from one of them. Clearing his throat as he finished, he tilted his head forward again and rubbed at his face with his flesh hand, groaning softly. Hanzo was slightly shocked to see how casually he was dressed--he wore a dark red woolen nightshirt that reached down to his knees, thick flannel pyjama pants with a brown plaid pattern, and heavy white socks to protect his feet. It was as if he did not expect an attack at any moment.

 

Hanzo set his feet down firmly and noisily as he approached, and the cowboy turned and gave a sheepish smile. “Good mornin’,” he said. “Sorry about walkin’ in on you like that. For some reason I was expectin’ us t’be able to use the shower in the bathroom--but we can’, of course.”

 

Hanzo nodded. “Yes, with no heat, using the plumbing would likely cause pipes to burst in the winter, so I only use the ones below the frost line. It may be possible to use them for the next two weeks, but the weather is unpredictable this time of year.”

 

“Yeah, better not risk it,” said the cowboy agreeably. “I think we can all deal with sponge baths for a couple of weeks. Well,” he said, his smile twisting from sheepish to thoughtful, “I dunno about our guest. She seems pretty, uh--particular. Hopefully she can adapt to the circumstances.” He shook his head before gesturing at the sitting room. “I got your MREs out there, but I think I’m sleepin’ in your pantry--you need anything from in there? I’m about t’try and get a little more shuteye before my shift.”

 

Hanzo considered--his thighs were sore from all the walking to meet and escort the Vishkar agent, so he could use the protein. His appetite was about as strong now as it was last night, but now that he was more awake he could acknowledge more easily how foolish it was not to eat as much as he could while a reliable food supply was close by--and he may yet find time to train and help vent his frustration and trepidation.

 

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, thank you. I will fetch it now.” He quickly set the tub in the sitting room before he went to the bedroom with his food storage. He carefully eased the door open, just in case the cowboy was mistaken, but to his immense relief there was only an empty sleeping bag nestled in a corner formed by the bins and crates, along with three or four incredibly worn duffel bags with faded, unintelligible logos on their sides. Going to the bins in the opposite corner from the cowboy’s belongings, he located a can of something with sufficiently high protein--he only glanced at the label to make sure it had plenty of rice to balance out the beans in the _cocido madrileño_ \--before returning to the sitting room.

 

The cowboy nodded at him as he passed the kitchen. “Get everything? Alright, I’m headin’ back t’sleep. Athena’s got her eye on everything, but lemme know if anything looks the least bit off to ya.” Hanzo nodded and listened to the near-non-existent _patpat_ of the cowboy’s socked feet as he retreated to his bedroom. He set the can next to the two MREs arranged side-by-side on the table, but before he ate the blankets could use as much drying time as possible.

 

Tub in hand, he awkwardly opened the door and stepped out into the pre-dawn gloom. Light was outlining the jagged crests of the mountains to the east, just enough to drown out the fainter stars and the band of the Milky Way above and more than enough to light his way. He could feel a slight breeze as he walked across the driveway, which must have been quite a bit faster even only fifteen meters higher, for the windmills were spinning at a healthy rate. He crossed to the two garages and set the tub below the inconspicuous retractable clothesline mounted on the side of the eastern garage. He pulled the line to the hook on the other garage, testing the tension before he began to toss the blankets over it and secure them with clothespins. He tried to work quickly--the damp fabric was rapidly numbing his fingers.

 

But once again, he was not quite quick enough.

 

From behind came the soft sound of a door opening and closing--from the western house. It would either be Agent Pharah or Agent D.Va, and Hanzo would greatly prefer--

 

“Sup.”

 

\--but of course it would be Agent D.Va.

 

He paused with a blanket in his hands before turning and bowing his head. “Good morning, Agent D.Va.”

 

She stood with her weight on one leg and her arms crossed, dressed much as she was the day before, in camo and a pistol clipped into her holster. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail rather than in a bun, however, and she had no warpaint, lending her a slightly softer appearance that was completely counteracted by the severe examining look she was leveling at him.

 

She looked him up and down, her gaze lingering on the sodden mass of cloth in his hands. “Laundry, huh? Handwashed, even? Probably not what you saw yourself doing by now, huh?”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow, both at her words and her tone, neither of which he was particularly prepared or inclined to endure before the sun had even risen. “No,” he said simply as he turned back to the clothesline.

 

She snorted at his one-line answer just as he realized his mistake. “Right? It must’ve been quite the shock downgrading from a castle full of servants to your own two hands.” Hanzo continued to work as he heard her snap her fingers. “But, no, that’s right--Genji says you were always pretty hands-on, going out and doing a lot of your own dirty work.” Hanzo’s jaw clenched as he waited for the obvious and inevitable jab at his fratricidal past, but instead-- “Must’ve been a blast from the past to be tying up women again. How long has it been since you last did _that?_ ”

 

Ah, thought Hanzo, almost nodding in understanding. It seemed Agent D.Va’s directness could be an advantage at times.

 

He took the time it took to hang up and pin the last two blankets in place to consider his answer, tugging a little at the last one to stretch it out before he turned to face her. “The Shimada-gumi ended their direct involvement in human trafficking before I was born,” he said neutrally, looking her straight in the eye. “My mother was my grandfather’s only child, and he did not believe that yakuza would follow a woman if they were trading in women.”

 

Agent D.Va blinked in surprise, obviously thrown. “Your _mom_ was in charge?” she asked in disbelief. “Can that even happen?”

 

“Rarely,” he responded with a small shrug. “My mother was the sixth known woman _oyabun_ or _kumichō_ among all yakuza, and one of three to rule for an appreciable amount of time.”

 

Agent D.Va looked reluctantly impressed. “Damn. She must’ve been tough.”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow again. “Yes, but I doubt you would find her admirable. My grandfather ended the Shimada-gumi’s direct involvement in human trafficking ostensibly on her behalf, but partner and subordinate yakuza continued in that trade, so we still benefited from it. My mother was also able to replace the lost revenue by introducing the Omnic trade to Japan--depending on what you think of Omnics, you may not think that is any better.”

 

She grimaced, but otherwise she looked thoughtful.

 

“If that is all, Agent D.Va?” he asked, picking up the tub.

 

She considered him for a few seconds. “You wanna do my laundry, too?” she asked cheekily.

 

Hanzo looked at her flatly.

 

“Hey, might as well ask as long as you were already doing some,” she said airily in reply, turning and starting to walk away. “I might’ve been nicer to you if you’d said yes, but your loss.”

 

Hanzo sincerely doubted that, but at the very least he now knew why Agent D.Va had thrown him such venomous looks the day before. The yakuza drew from many sources for their human trafficking, but Korea had been a favorite target for centuries. Its proximity to Japan would have assured that by itself, but more than that, the historically low status of ethnic Koreans in Japan meant that yakuza could take advantage of them in two seemingly diametrically opposed ways: for some, their low status simply made it easier for the people surrounding them to look the other way when they were victimized. Others took advantage of their relative isolation to offer camaraderie, solidarity, and protection--in exchange for their loyalty and connections, of course. The vast majority of them were born in Japan and considered themselves Japanese yet were denied many opportunities, so many responded well to being included for once and felt little empathy for the Koreans they helped bring over--they were not countrymen, after all.

 

Being able to play both sides was quite the tidy arrangement for the yakuza as a whole.

 

Back in the day, Hanzo had been thankful that the Shimada-gumi had ended their direct role in human trafficking. Even then the whole business rubbed him the wrong way, but not enough to do anything about it beyond the Shimada-gumi, of course. So long as he personally did not have to manage it, it was distant enough. He only learned an appropriate amount of disgust for it in the past ten years from the enormous number of jobs available to recover trafficking victims. Hanzo had actually been on such a job in Incheon when Overwatch fell--or at least, that had been part of the threats sent by the kidnappers to the victim’s wealthy parents. It was more likely they had been trying to squeeze a bigger ransom out of them, but it was hard to tell for sure. None had survived Hanzo’s arrival when he tracked them down.

 

But it hardly mattered what Hanzo thought now. Back when he had been in a position to do something about it, he had done nothing, and that was what counted.

 

But at least now he could better understand Agent D.Va’s disdain--and even agree with it.

 

He walked back to the eastern house with the tub pressed against his hip. Agent D.Va, on the other hand, went to the end of the driveway, did a quick routine of stretches, and began to jog along the edge of the driveway. Eager to be inside before she passed by him, Hanzo allowed himself only a few moments to bolster himself against possibly seeing Genji before he went inside.

 

It was a good thing he took even that much.

 

“Good morning, brother,” said Genji.

 

Did no one in Overwatch sleep?

 

Genji was standing behind the counter separating the kitchen from the sitting room, a specter of grey metal and artificial sinew in the dim light bleeding in from the hallway and with his running lights off. He walked around the counter into the sitting room, saying, “I thought I heard you earlier.” He gestured at the can and MREs on the low table. “Were you about to eat?”

 

Hanzo tried not to freeze at the sight of him, but at the very least there was something of a hitch to his steps, if he was being generous. He swallowed and glanced at the food to buy himself some time in answering--especially when it occurred to him that there might be a hidden motive in Genji’s question.

 

“I--” he began, fighting the feeling of a hand squeezing around his throat at the thought of sharing a meal with Genji. “No, the cow--Agent McCree left them there for me, but I have much to do.”

 

Genji tipped his head to the side as the unlit V of his visor followed Hanzo’s movement as he made to escape down the hall to the basement. “McCree did, huh?” he said, his modulated voice soft. “Was that to make sure you ate before you forgot altogether?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips once he was reasonably sure his face was at least partially hidden. He cast about for a good enough reason not to eat then and there--and found one surprisingly easily. “My custom,” he said quietly, pausing at the entrance to the hallway and shifting the tub from one arm to the other, “is to eat after I have trained. I--plan to set up the training equipment in the barn and offer its use to Overwatch during this mission.”

 

“Oh! That’s--that’s thoughtful of you, brother,” said Genji with surprise, but with a distinct undertone of something resembling--disappointment? “Were you--were you going to do that now, then?”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo, but when it occurred to him that Genji might simply say that they should train together rather than eat together, he hastened to add, “But today the setup process itself will be the training. It will take some time.” The thought of boring busywork had always sent Genji running for the hills.

 

This time, however, instead of immediately coming up with an excuse, Genji merely looked at him for a few moments. “Do--I mean,” he finally said. “Um--call if--if you need help, okay?”

 

“None will be necessary,” said Hanzo immediately.

 

He went down the hall, but before he descended to the basement, he heard Genji mutter, “Of course it won’t.”

 

Hanzo clenched his jaw and could not work it loose in the time it took to put the tub back in its place in the basement and return upstairs, but at least Genji had disappeared to who-knows-where in that time. Hanzo fetched his keys from the cello case and fled out the door before he could return, turning the lights off as he went.

 

Agent D.Va had switched from jogging around the perimeter of the driveway to running intervals up and down its length, stopping at approximate quarter, half, and three-quarters marks to dash back to the start.

 

Hanzo did not acknowledge her and did not expect to be acknowledged, but to his surprise she immediately altered course and began to run up and down close to him as he walked, gasping out, “So! When--when do we--get a demo of--of ninja training?!”

 

Her voice rose and dropped in volume as she ran back and forth, and Hanzo could not imagine why she would take the time to ask the question instead of literally saving her breath. “Once the training equipment in the gym is set up,” he said coolly, never breaking his stride towards the road and the barn beyond, “there may be an opportunity.”

 

She shot him an incredulous look but said nothing as she dashed off to the other end of the driveway. If Hanzo picked up his pace a little, he could only hope she did not notice, but Agent D.Va was soon back, running to her start line before she gave a little crow of victory--or relief--and started to jog as a cooldown in circles around Hanzo. “Are you telling me,” she said after a few moments, when it seemed she had at least half her breath back, “that you have a _gym_ here?”

 

Hanzo nodded, both in confirmation and at the barn, his jaw forcefully closed once more. He could not see her face very well as she continued to run around and around them, but she seemed equal parts disbelieving and impressed. “How did you get a gym out here?” she demanded.

 

“It is mostly improvised from everyday supplies. It is not very sophisticated.”

 

Agent D.Va snorted. “We’re in the middle of nowhere and you’re worried about sophistication?”

 

Hanzo resisted the urge to roll his eyes in case she managed to catch him. “No,” he said evenly.

 

 _She_ rolled her eyes, not caring in the least if he saw. “Well, I’m coming with. I’ve _got_ to see this.”

 

His heart sank, but he could only say “Of course,” as automatically as he could manage.

 

Agent D.Va stopped her circling as they crossed the road--the uneven pavement with various plant matter breaking through the cracks made jogging perilous--and she fell into step alongside him, breathing hard from her exertion and wiping her face with her sleeve. Hanzo strictly kept looking straight ahead as he led his guest to a door off to the side of the large main entrance, the same one he had darted to when Athena had warned him of the Vishkar agent. He unlocked it and held it open, waving her in before he followed, leaving the door open for a bare minimum of light; the sun was on the cusp of rising.

 

Enough leaked into the barn to reveal the large single room of the interior, broken only by the thick, sturdy beams holding up the two haymows running the length of the barn on each side, with chin-up bars connecting many of them at various heights. A neat row of crates lined the wall opposite the main entrance. Targets with red and white concentric circles were littered across the walls at random, except for four in a precise row above the crates.

 

“Not bad,” said Agent D.Va as she looked up and down the open space. “I won’t have to go running in the rain and snow. Good to know.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips as he made for the crates. He had not yet offered use of the barn to Agent D.Va, but it was a moot point--he was going to, so it did not matter if she assumed.

 

He leaned Storm Bow against the crate at the end of the row, then tugged the lids off all of them one-by-one, laying them in a pile at the other end of the row. Agent D.Va wandered over to inspect them. She let out a incredulous snort when she saw one crate was full of metal bars. “What’s this?”

 

“Asymmetric bars,” he said simply.

 

“What, really?” She stared at him for a second. “You’re a gymnast?”

 

He could only shrug. “Ninjutsu and gymnastics often make similar demands on the body.”

 

She clicked her mouth shut, thought for a moment, and scowled. “That’s--kinda obvious when you think about it.” Shaking her head, she focused on Hanzo as he began taking stacks of buckets, canvas sacks, and rope out of a crate. “I think I know this one. Weight resistance?”

 

“Yes,” he replied simply. He gestured at the next crate over, which was filled almost the rim with sand.

 

Agent D.Va nodded and moved to the next one, which contained irregularly shaped blocks of wood whose only common features were one flat side along with one or two holes bored straight through. She frowned at them before she looked around, as though trying to place where they belonged. After a few moments, she clapped her hands once. “I get it--climbing wall!” She pointed at a series of holes drilled into the walls. “But that’s one shitty--wait--” The holes were in a wall under one of the haymows and thus only allowed for a climbing wall about three meters high, but Agent D.Va walked over and peered up at wooden planks above. “You’re kidding,” she muttered. She had spotted the holes drilled into the wooden planks making up the underside of the haymow. She turned and pointed up at them. “Seriously?”

 

Hanzo gave a single curt nod before he returned to setting out the buckets and canvas bags at the side of the sand crate before he withdrew a shovel from the bottom of the storage crate. He began to climb up to begin pouring sand into the buckets, but Agent D.Va came striding back. “Here,” she said, clambering up. “I’ll do that. It’s just to the marks on the inside, right?” She pointed to light scratches on the interior of the buckets. Hanzo nodded, slightly impressed that she caught on to the subtle detail. “Cool, I got this. You go set up the bars or the climbing wall--I dunno which I want to see you do first, tbh, so I’ll leave that up to you.”

 

Hanzo gave her a flat look.

 

She looked back with zero shame.

 

He reluctantly jumped down, landing lightly. He began gathering the holds out of their crate--she may not know which she wanted demonstrated, but _he_ knew which would be easier.

 

So began a slow, repetitive process that seemed even slower because of Agent D.Va’s presence hovering the background. Hanzo was thankful she had assigned herself a task that kept her well away from his own work, of course, but she was not quite far enough away for his comfort. Nevertheless, she set herself to her work with a surprising amount of focus--and silence. There was only the sound of the coarse sand thundering against the plastic buckets, and even that quieted down when she began to place the buckets at her feet rather than on the floor. She either did not like the noise or wished to stop splashing sand everywhere--there was a fair amount surrounding the first two or three buckets.

 

He, meanwhile, was occupied with screwing the long screws into their anchors in the wall until each climbing hold was firmly attached. He used a push drill screwdriver, which greatly reduced the wear on his fingers and forearms, especially given how long the screws were. Normally he might balk at avoiding a potential impromptu workout, but installing the holds soon allowed for a far more intense routine.

 

It took Agent D.Va a few minutes to notice, but he caught the moment she froze from the sudden cutoff in the sound of sand striking plastic.

 

“Seriously?” she called over. “Don’t you have a ladder?”

 

“I do,” he answered, not bothering to look at her. His left arm and shoulder were protesting from balancing the force from his legs, his entire body taut as a bowstring to keep him anchored to the ceiling. The effort was more than enough to produce an arc of beads of sweat across his brow.

 

“That’s nuts!” she said, and there was an ungraceful thud as she jumped down and jogged over. He glanced down at her--she was standing off to one side, peering up at him with her hands on her hips. “How many times have you snuck into somewhere across the _ceiling?_ ”

 

He raised an eyebrow, though she could not see it. “None.”

 

A brief silence. “None?” She sounded disappointed.

 

“There is usually a complete lack of handholds on ceilings,” he said dryly. He dropped to the floor, landing far more quietly than Agent D.Va, before striding to the crates to grab more holds. She followed close behind.

 

“So--this means you can do that thing where hold your body straight out, right?”

 

He frowned as he looked at her quizzically, eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

 

“You know! When you’re holding a pole or a beam with yours hands and you hold your body straight out like you’re hanging from a bar, but you’re horizontal! Hang on, I’ll show you--” She grabbed her comm out of her pocket and began furiously typing.

 

Hanzo shook his head slightly, gathered more holds along with the screws out of their small box in the corner of the crate before he left her behind. He set the holds on the ground off to the side of where he had been working, but instead of climbing back up, he leapt straight up, catching one of the holds and lifting his legs into their bracing position.

 

“Okay, now I know you’re showing off,” huffed Agent D.Va with a distinctly amused undertone.

 

“I would do much the same with no witnesses,” he replied.

 

“What, showing off?” He could almost hear the eyeroll. “If a tree shows off in a forest--but anyway! This, you can totally do _this,_ right?” She had approached again and was speaking somewhere underneath him. Pursing his lips at the distraction and the faint trembling in his arm and legs, he threw a quick look at a picture of a--

 

“A ‘flag hold’?” he said, returning to his work. “Yes, I am capable of a flag hold.”

 

Agent D.Va huffed again, this time with slight disappointment. “Oh, come on! What does it take to get a rise out of you?”

 

“More than a stripper,” he responded, voice neutral. “Do you take me for an ascetic?”

 

“Kinda!” she shot back, gesturing a hand at the barn around them. “Besides, weren’t you always dragging Genji out of stripper joints?”

 

“That was because he was _publically_ going to stripper joints,” said Hanzo, grimacing in concentration as the screw jammed. He began to work it loose to try again. “If he wished to indulge, there were plenty of nightclubs that would have _discreetly_ met his needs.”

 

“Humph. Out of sight, out of mind?” she asked acidly.

 

“Precisely,” he replied. “You know of the clan elders’ disapproval of Genji--his disregard for propriety was one of many excuses for it. If he had deigned to subtly ask for a recommendation, many of them would have had five or six favorite private establishments to suggest. They usually employed far more talented dancers, as well--he would have learned much more from them than from the less professional, often amateur performances at the places I found him.”

 

Agent D.Va was silent for few moments. “Are you,” she said slowly, “are you some sort of stripper snob?”

 

“The Japanese Olympic Team pole dancers trained in a city close by,” said Hanzo, wondering how they had managed to get to this topic. “Thus there were many highly trained dancers at the more upscale establishments around my hometown.”

 

“And you took that as a _learning opportunity?_ ”

 

“Should I not have?” He dropped down from the ceiling again after the errant screw had finally fit into position. He nodded at Agent D.Va’s comm. “As you can see, they are capable of great physical feats. There is little reason not to take inspiration from them.”

 

Agent D.Va stared at him as he picked up another hold. “I refuse to believe you’re less of a prude than I am.”

 

“That is your prerogative.”

 

She snorted as he jumped back up. “You want me to just hand you stuff so you don’t have to keep jumping up and down?”

 

“No, thank you,” he answered after a short pause, thrown by the sudden offer. “I cannot maintain this position for very long without frequent rests.”

 

She tsked. “And just like that, the magic is gone. I thought you were superhuman for a minute.”

 

“Better to have an accurate picture of my abilities than a superlative one.”

 

She snorted one last time. She watched him until he dropped down for another hold, then she returned to the sand crate. As she filled the last of the buckets and started on the canvas bags, she made sure to keep facing Hanzo. He supposed it was just in case he did something else that entertained her, but it was not likely to happen--he was almost done with the ceiling holds on the underside of the haymow. The climbing wall continued up the wall and ceiling above it, but the roof of the barn was angled rather than flat, so it would not be quite the same feat.

 

And indeed, he did nothing more that warranted commentary for the next little while, even as he screwed the last hold in place before he scrambled onto the haymow from underneath to inspect the screw anchors in the wall there. He dropped down from the haymow to find Agent D.Va filling the last of the canvas sacks. He checked to make sure she had not filled them beyond the lines marked inside, nodded, and reached into another crate, producing soft red nylon ropes.

 

Agent D.Va raised her eyebrows.

 

He ignored her as he inserted a rope through the reinforced eyelets in one sack and tied a knot in the end to prevent it slipping out again. The canvas cinched closed as he held it up to show her. “These are meant to be slung over the shoulders or tied around the waist,” he explained shortly as he set it down and stood. “The buckets are either for arm exercises or for this yoke.” He took out a two-meter long pole with four hooks, two on each end and two closer to the center. He leaned it against the crate and took out a neat bundle of elastic resistance bands held together by a thick rubber band and a set of spring grips and set them at the feet of the crates. The gym now only lacked the rest of the climbing holds, the asymmetric bars and a reshuffling of the targets to be complete.

 

He moved to grab more holds. Behind him, Agent D.Va jumped down to look over the equipment set out on the floor. Her comm chimed as she tried the largest of the spring grips, scowling at what little success she had. She checked it and looked up at Hanzo. “I’m being told that it’s time to take a break and fuel up,” she said, waving her comm at him.

 

He pursed his lips. By whom? He gestured at the bars and said, “It will not take long to set up the bars. I will eat afterwards.”

 

Agent D.Va threw her head back a little. “Oh, yeah, you wouldn’t know. ‘Breakfast’ is also the ‘daily huddle’. That’s why everyone was calling you from the cafeteria--after that first call, checking in on you got added to the agenda somehow.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips.

 

He recovered Storm Bow and his quiver and followed Agent D.Va outside, closing the door behind them. He got halfway through locking it before he paused. If it was to be open to Overwatch during their stay--

 

He sighed and took out his comm.

 

 

 

 

 

> >From: Agent Shimada
> 
> Excuse me, Athena, but is there
> 
> a spyder assigned to the barn?
> 
> >Athena
> 
> I am maintaining surveillance over
> 
> every building in the homestead,
> 
> Agent Shimada.

 

Well. In that case, it was unlikely that someone would be able to infiltrate the barn and set up an ambush.

 

He turned the key the other way and left the door unlocked--but the heavy feeling of leaving the barn so vulnerable, with or without Athena’s vigilance, weighed on him as he trailed behind Agent D.Va.

 

Confirming his thought the night before, she headed straight for the eastern house and entered after nothing more than a brief knock. He repressed a bitter glower. His annoyance with her was becoming almost habitual.

 

“--I knew he wasn’t in here,” he caught Agent D.Va saying as he approached the door she had left open behind her.

 

“Well, still,” replied the deep timbre of the cowboy. “He sleeps in here, and we’re already steppin’ all over his toes. _I’ve_ already pretty much stomped on ‘em. So if you get a chance t’show a little more, uh--”

 

“Propriety?” she suggested, and once again he could almost hear her rolling her eyes.

 

“Yeah!” he shot back.

 

“It is nothing, Agent McCree,” said Hanzo as he stepped inside. “This is the obvious choice for the other agents to meet. I have no objection to when they enter.”

 

The cowboy was in the kitchen, standing with his arms crossed over his barrel chest. He had changed back into more usual attire, a dark flannel shirt with the long sleeves rolled back to show his forearms, both flesh and metal. His hat was set on the counter off to one side. Before him lay what must be the contents of at least three MREs, with half the cans opened and already empty.

 

He looked at Hanzo with some surprise. “Oh! Well,” he muttered, obviously a bit thrown, but he recovered quickly. “Well, thank ye kindly, Agent Shimada, but I think we can manage a bit of courtesy when it comes t’your sleepin’ space. You should consider my offer t’swap open, for one, and we can do things like knock and wait before comin’ in. Besides, that’d mean if we came burstin’ in you’d know immediately that somethin’s up.”

 

Hanzo’s lips thinned, but before he could try to downplay any need for such “courtesy”, Agent D.Va spoke up at his side.

 

“I guess,” she said, drawing out the last word and hamming up the petulance. “And _you_ can start showing some propriety, Agent Shimada, by washing off your filthy feet before you go a step further.”

 

She was sitting on the little stool by the door, and at her side was a bucket half-filled with water. She rubbed a washcloth across the soles of her shoes before she dropped it back in the water and picked up another washcloth, dried them off, and stood. “Here you go.”

 

Hanzo stared at the setup for a moment before he looked at the cowboy. “Was this--Agent Mei’s idea?”

 

“Ms. Vaswani’s, actually,” said the cowboy with a slight smile. “She, uh--she had some opinions about wearing shoes indoors that she was only too happy t’share with Mei when she brought it up.”

 

Hanzo nodded slightly. He could readily believe it--he had not been imagining the Vishkar agent’s glances at everyone’s feet after all. As Agent D.Va took a seat crosslegged at the table, Hanzo sat on the stool and gave his feet as good a scrubbing as he could manage with plain water, but seeing his metallic soles gleam in the morning sunlight filtering through the door’s window was disproportionately pleasing. It was lessened somewhat by seeing the distinct outlines of footprints crisscrossing the carpet--the solution was far too late--but it was not as bad it could be, and now it would not get appreciably worse while Hanzo was here to witness it.

 

He knelt at the table, laying Storm Bow off to his side. Agent D.Va was on his left, arranging and rearranging her legs on the thin carpet. He frowned. “Do you require a cushion?”

 

“If you got one,” she said after a moment, still shifting her weight.

 

Hanzo began to rise, but the cowboy called out, “I got it, Agent Shimada. Here, Song.” He tossed two MREs to Agent D.Va, who caught them deftly, their contents rattling loudly. He hurried down the hall and reappeared a moment later with a small pillow and his sleeping bag tucked under one arm. “Take your pick.”

 

“Pillow, please,” and she sighed after he tossed it to her. “This floor is freezing!” she complained after she was seated to her satisfaction. She tore open her MRE, not waiting for the cowboy as he grabbed the water jug from the kitchen and set it on the table before arranging his sleeping bag and sitting crosslegged as well with his own meal.

 

Hanzo could only shrug as he waited for the cowboy to flip open his first MRE before he did the same.

 

“Well, then,” said the cowboy suddenly, pausing just before his first bite into a hard roll. “This’ll be your first team breakfast, won’ it, Agent Shimada?”

 

Hanzo blinked at the odd pronouncement. “I ate breakfast with Agent Soldier: 76,” he said slowly, his stomach clenching somewhat at the memory, “in Niigata before the debriefing.”

 

“O-oh,” said the cowboy, looking like he was trying about as hard as Hanzo not to look uncomfortable. “Well, that don’ count,” he declared, nodding decisively. “We hadn’ started havin’ team breakfasts yet. There weren’ enough of us on the base.”

 

Agent D.Va hummed a noise of disagreement, chewed, swallowed, and said, “Winston, Tracer, and Genji were. Whenever Mercy, Rein and Torres came by, they tried to be in time for them--that’s how Lúcio and me found out about them. Rein invited us.”

 

The cowboy’s lips thinned. “Yeah, but they didn’ become _official_ team breakfasts ‘til a little while ago.”

 

“When?” asked Agent D.Va with a light, devious tone. “When you and 76 _had_ to start coming?”

 

The cowboy smiled blandly. “Yep, pretty much--nothing’s official ‘til at least two people don’ wanna be there.” His smile softened a little. “Good thing, though--finally managed t’fix my sleep schedule.”

 

“Yeah,” said Agent D.Va. “Genji said that nothing would get you up unless we had some delicious, delicious bait.”

 

“Then why’d they let _you_ cook?” asked the cowboy with a gleam in his eye.

 

“ _Meongcheong-i_ ,” she muttered, flipping him off.

 

He grinned before he turned to Hanzo. “Anyway, we’ve already gone over what you can do. Everyone else is gonna be stickin’ close t’the homestead today. I’d expect everyone t’check in with you through the day, just t’make sure of things as we finish settin’ everything up, so don’ be too scarce.”

 

Hanzo nodded as he scooped up a mouthful of rice from the can with a piece of roll. “I will have the comm with me at all times. Athena can direct them to me.”

 

“Alright,” said the cowboy, still smiling. “Startin’ tomorrow we’re gonna send people t’check on the other buildings around here. Athena’s drones are keepin’ an eye on everything, so it’s more t’keep ‘em occupied durin’ their free time, but it’s always a good idea for people t’know their surroundings. I was wonderin’ if you’d mind goin’ with ‘em?”

 

“Of course not,” said Hanzo, even as his heart sank. Genji and the Omnic monk’s “free time” overlapped during the day.

 

“Great,” said Agent D.Va. “You can be me and Genji’s chaperone tomorrow--we want to go see the cats.”

 

Hanzo relaxed slightly. Dealing with either Genji or the Omnic monk rather than both seemed more doable

 

“I think everyone does,” said the cowboy, chuckling. “You didn’ decide on this place because of the neighbors, or did you, Agent Shimada?”

 

“No, but they certainly are an advantage,” said Hanzo, thinking of the rodents that would otherwise overrun the homestead.

 

“Nothing staves off cabin fever like a cat on your lap, huh?” asked Agent D.Va.

 

Hanzo shook his head. “They do not permit physical contact except on rare occasions.” With the exception of Sakura and kittens, of course, but now that she had disappeared and it was so late in the year, it was unlikely that any of the cats would become habituated enough to Hanzo’s presence to allow any touching before he left. “I do not know how they will react to new arrivals. They have never seen anyone other than myself before.”

 

“Cats love me,” declared Agent D.Va. “They’ll be sneaking on the Orca to go back with us by the time I’m through with them.”

 

“You have experience with feral cats, then?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Nah,” she said, but she waved her hand carelessly. “But they’ll still love me. You’ll see.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “Do--” he began, pausing to rephrase his words into something other than an order. “I recommend that you not give them food of any kind. They know where the homestead is, and they may come to demand more if they associate you with food.”

 

“But that’s about 80% of my strategy,” pouted Agent D.Va.

 

“It would be best not to carry food around in general,” Hanzo advised. “It tends to attract bears.”

 

“Yeah, but that’s not a problem for you, is it?” interjected Genji from the hallway.

 

Hanzo immediately stiffened, only barely managing from snapping the plastic spoon from the MRE in half when his jaw tried to clench closed. Genji entered the kitchen, moving about with unhurried, nonchalant movements, not looking into the sitting room. Hanzo struggled for a few embarrassing seconds to moderate his reaction--which was not helped at all when he realized he had been watching Genji like a hawk for those few seconds--before he snapped his eyes back to his food, breathed in and out and in, and said in a low, controlled voice, “They _are_ a problem. It can be difficult to keep them away from the waste dump about a kilometer from here. It usually takes a very aggressive display to convince them to leave since they, too, have usually never seen a person before.”

 

Agent D.Va was staring him, open-mouthed.

 

“Are you telling me--” she said slowly, but her voice drifted away to nothing before she completed the sentence.

 

“How big are the bears round here?” asked the cowboy, eyebrows raised.

 

“Among the largest in the world,” he replied, still focused on his food. “The Ainu found some that weighed six hundred kilograms, but that was while they were still scavenging off the abandoned fields and food stores. They have gotten slightly smaller since.”

 

“How big was the one you got?” called Genji from the kitchen as the cowboy whistled.

 

“About four hundred kilograms,” he answered mechanically. “He may have been sick or infirm. He did not wish to give up the dump, so I suspect he was consumed with hunger.”

 

Now both of the agents at the table were staring at him. Agent D.Va’s jaw had dropped a little lower, while the cowboy’s eyebrows were threatening to disappear into his hair.

 

“So where are you hiding your bear gun?” blurted Agent D.Va, glancing at Storm Bow on the floor.

 

“I do not use guns,” he muttered. With a start, he realized how strange it must look to be staring at his food but not eating, so he forced himself to open a can of tuna and start dishing it onto a roll.

 

“So--so--you took down a _bear_ with a _bow and_ _arrow?”_ Agent D.Va’s voice was rising in volume. She sat back and crossed her arms and level a disbelieving look at him. “No way, nuh uh. Prove it.”

 

“I cannot,” said Hanzo, before he forced down a mouthful of tuna and breadroll with a gulp of water.

 

Agent D.Va looked disappointed. “Why not?”

 

“After I butchered him for the meat, I sold the rest of his remains to the Ainu.”

 

“Oh? I bet that impressed them,” said Genji, still in the kitchen.

 

“Perhaps,” said Hanzo after a few moments. He had sold them to Asai in Hirō, in point of fact--it had not occurred to him until now, but she had not started treating him with full familiarity until he came to her with bear paws and bones in tow. He would have brought the pelt as well, but he had not been familiar enough with skinning at the time and completely bungled the attempt.

 

“Are they still doing the _kumamatsuri,_ brother?”

 

“Of course.”

 

Genji sucked in a breath, audible even through his visor. “Really? That’s unfortunate.”

 

“What’s that?” asked the cowboy, looking between Hanzo and Genji.

 

“ _Kumamatsuri_ is the Japanese term for _Omante_ and _Iyomante,_ ” explained Hanzo, still addressing his food more than anyone in the room. “The Ainu believe animals are gods visiting the mortal realm in order to give gifts and sustenance to humans, and bears reign at the top of the hierarchy. Both adult bears and bear cubs are annually sacrificed to give thanks for the pelts and meat they provide as they send the gods back to their own world.”

 

“Don’t they also use arrows to kill the bears?” asked Genji. Hanzo glanced at him leaning against the kitchen counter, an MRE at his elbow.

 

“Yes, that is the tradition.”

 

“No wonder you came up here, then. You must feel right at home.”

 

Hanzo could not keep from gritting his teeth.

 

Home.

 

He had no home, did not deserve one, and the evidence of that was speaking to him at this very moment.

 

He rose to his feet.

 

“That was the least of my concerns when I came here,” he said levelly. He hooked Storm Bow over his shoulder, gathered up the remains of the MREs--at least he’d managed to get through about three-quarters of them, including nearly all the protein--and walked briskly into the kitchen, dumping the empty containers in the sealed trash can and leaving the freeze dried noodles on the counter for whomever wanted them. He avoided Genji as much as possible, hardly looking at him. He headed for the door as soon as his hands were free. “I will begin the inventory after I have finished setting up the equipment in the gym, Agent McCree. You may check on my progress when you come off guard duty--Athena will direct you to my location,” he said, shutting the door with a click just after the last word and setting off for the barn, hardly breaking his stride.

 

Home.

 

Hardly looking left or right, he marched across the road, through the barn door, and to the crates, where he mindlessly began to get the long metal bars out and set them quietly to the floor, his movements swift and practiced as he tried to hold back the tide of emotional disquiet that threatened to spill forth to fill the gulf that Genji’s words had opened in him.

 

Overwatch’s arrival may have turned out to be a blessing in disguise--it was turning out to be a sharp reminder of what Hanzo had allowed himself. Now, however, the homestead was being converted to service something useful for a little while instead of being wasted on someone who did not merit it--that could only be a good thing.

 

Best to dedicate himself to the effort as fully as possible.

 

It took another hour or two to attach the asymmetric bars to their anchors in the floor, set up the bars to his satisfaction, and then finish up the portion of the climbing wall above the haymow. He was not sure how long it was exactly--no one disturbed him all the while, the comm did not chime, and he did not bother to check it as he worked.

 

However long it was, only a thin stripe of the sun’s rays still poured through the open door when he finished screwing the last hold just underneath the spine of the barn’s roof. He tested it with his full weight, hanging off it from one arm before he simply let himself drop to the floor far below, landing in a crouch with a soft _thump._ He returned his tools to their respective crates and took out one last small box before he put all their lids back on.

 

He walked the perimeter of the barn, taking the thin wooden targets off their mounts and clipping them onto the others scattered across the walls at random. The box contained a rudimentary holographic emitter designed to help train sharpshooters--it worked with the targets by projecting different symbols and silhouettes at them for the trainee to hit. It was a far cry from modern simulators, but it more than sufficed for Hanzo. He imagined that Genji might find use with it with his shuriken--he hoped that the other Overwatch agents refrained from using their firearms, though.

 

It did not matter what they did, he reminded himself. It did not matter.

 

The gym was now fully set up and ready for use. He took one last look around the space, nodded, and headed out.

 

He went straight for the western garage, the larger of the two. He entered through the side door and stood off to one side of the open door to let as much light in as possible.

 

He frowned at the contents within. Spaced regularly throughout were stacks of wood--some of them were round cross-sections of trees, others were roughly hewn boards, still others were short, stocky blocks of various sizes that had been roughly cut to size with one of the two axes hanging on the wall.

 

The rest of the walls were occupied with various woodworking tools organized according to type and held in place by hooks and fasteners above metal workbenches: handsaws, carving knifes, V- and U-tools, gouges, chisels, and more. There were a few (rarely used) electric tools gathered in groups around the electric sockets, but the majority were hand tools ranging from fairly delicate to heavy duty.

 

Despite the shiny metallic parts of the tools and only the lightest of coatings of dust on each flat surface, the interior of this garage was the most abandoned-looking part of the homestead. The beginnings of cobwebs were stretched across and between every available space, an inevitable consequence of gathering wood from the surrounding forest and storing it--along with its residents--indoors. The only sign of habitation was a clear line of disturbed and broken spiderwebs leading to the ladder Hanzo had used the day before.

 

Hanzo sighed and grabbed an extendable broom from beside the door. He cleared a path to the handhold in middle of the main rolling sectional door and heaved it up with a groan--it was meant to be opened by a large motor which had long since broken down, and the shrill shrieking noise of the rollers and wheels only emphasized the resistance he encountered.

 

But Hanzo only lifted the door some fifty centimeters. He did not want to encourage anyone to enter.

 

He returned to the side door and began to work his way across the garage, sweeping every surface within reach and shaking globs and clumps of dusty spider web to the floor as he went along. From time to time he gathered the debris together and swept it out the garage door. Most of the webs’ residents and intended victims were probably already hibernating, but some were not, and Hanzo was soon roughly herding various arthropods out the door, pushing them out as forcefully as possible to discourage them from coming back.

 

Those that could not take flight, that is. Those that could flitted back and forth when they were disturbed, mostly moths of various uninspiring and mottled grey, brown and yellow colors with the occasional flashier green or pink. Were the garage door open, Hanzo would have been able to shoo most of them out, but only a few managed to find either the long, narrow space near the floor or the open side door. They mainly resettled elsewhere and crawled out of sight, but Hanzo could not bring himself to care.

 

Once every surface within range of the extendable broom handle had been swept at least once and the last of the terrestrial denizens had been exiled, Hanzo shut the garage door by more or less stomping on the handhold, the rollers squealing in a short burst once more before the door rattled and boomed when it slammed home, the noises reverberating away slowly as he turned and looked over his work for a moment. The difference was stark.

 

He took out the comm and typed out a short message to Athena, asking for her help with the catalog system. The comm chimed, and he withdrew the earpiece and inserted it.

 

“Good afternoon, Agent Shimada,” she said. He glanced at the time--it was very slightly after midday. “May I ask how you are doing?”

 

“Very well,” he said shortly--too shortly. He frowned at his own frayed nerves and added a belated, “Thank you. And yourself?”

 

“Just fine, Agent Shimada,” the AI replied smoothly. “Have Agent McCree or Agent Genji given you the package Dr. Ziegler sent you yet?”

 

Hanzo grimaced down at the comm. “No,” he said after a few moments.

 

“Ah,” said the AI with the air of broaching an indelicate subject. “She asked them to deliver it as discreetly as possible. They must not have found an opportune moment yet.”

 

“What is it?” asked Hanzo tiredly, though he could guess.

 

“Dr. Ziegler has noted the contents in your medical file, but it has been marked as ‘restricted from electronic transmission’,” said Athena briskly. “Your express permission is required to override the restriction if you need to know immediately.”

 

“No, no, thank you,” said Hanzo, fumbling the words a little in haste. Just the fact that it was medically confidential was enough to confirm his suspicions, but he could not help but be surprised that Dr. Ziegler had followed through on his request to not transmit his information electronically. Somehow he expected--well, he was not sure what he expected. A casual disregard for his concerns, perhaps, motivated by her personal dislike of him and her faith in Overwatch’s secure communications.

 

But that was unfair--she had been anything but casual in all of their interactions. Understandably compromised by her opinion of him, certainly, but never treating him or his concerns casually.

 

He shook his head. He would have to do better in respecting her professionalism.

 

“I will attend to that as soon as I am able,” he assured Athena. “In the meantime, Agent McCree would like an inventory of the homestead’s contents to see if there is anything of use to Overwatch.”

 

“Ah, excellent,” said Athena warmly. “There’s likely to be a lot we can use--it’s often difficult to disguise our supply train. Where would you like to begin?”

 

Hanzo gestured at his surroundings despite the audio call. “These are likely to be the least useful items,” he said--he could not imagine that wood carving was high on Overwatch’s agenda. “Thus it will be of little consequence if I commit errors while familiarizing myself with the catalog.”

 

“Alright,” said Athena, and her easy agreement lifted a weight off Hanzo’s shoulders. There was little reason for the Overwatch agents to come here. It was, perhaps, foolish to play this card so soon, but at the moment he did not feel equal to behaving acceptably.

 

And to his immense relief, the equipment in here did indeed provide hours of work. Athena patiently walked him through the catalog, a utilitarian piece of software so austere it was almost painful to look at in the dim light, but Hanzo shouldered through the ache in his eyes as he methodically and slowly worked his way through the garage. He did not know the precise names for much of the equipment in Japanese, much less English, but Athena was able to translate and identify what he could not when he showed her via the comm’s camera before they indexed and cross-referenced each item. Athena was, unsurprisingly, quite thorough, and Hanzo wondered if the cowboy was anywhere near as exhaustive or if his main contribution to the process when he came off guard duty would be streamlining it to the bare essentials.

 

He did not have to wonder for long. He and Athena were about two-thirds finished when a polite knock came from the open side door. Hanzo glanced at the time--1638, to his surprise--before he looked up to see the cowboy framed in early evening light in the doorway.

 

“Hey,” he said. “Can I come in?”

 

“Of course, Agent McCree,” said Hanzo. He turned back to the comm to finish putting in one last line of information before saving the entry of a chisel under Tools, Recreation, Rare, Limited Utility, and Non-Weapons.

 

He looked back up to find the cowboy had only advanced two or three steps and was now looking around, blinking. At first he thought his eyes were adjusting to the dim conditions, but--

 

“Holy shit,” the cowboy breathed.

 

He hesitantly walked over to the back wall and ran a hand over the smooth surface of a workbench while staring on the tools fastened to the wall above it.  “What’ve we got here?” he murmured, almost to himself. “You brought a whole fucking workshop up here, ar--Agent Shimada?”

 

Hanzo watched him with his eyebrows slightly furrowed at the cowboy’s reaction. “No,” he said slowly. “No, the former owners set up the majority of it. I have added only five or six tools. Apparently they provided handcarved curiosities or souvenirs for a shop in the train station to the south.”

 

The cowboy nodded distractedly, his eyes wandering over the walls with a small but growing smile. He seemed to linger on the carving knives for a bit before he looked at Hanzo at last and said, “All looks pretty well taken care of. You come and polish everything when you’re snowed in?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips at the teasing tone and only barely refrained from rolling his eyes at the image of himself forcing his way through the snowdrifts that enveloped the homestead in the depths of winter only to lovingly polish every tool to a high shine--all while ignoring the stacked wood.

 

“Everything here has seen use at one time or another,” he finally said to answer the cowboy’s knowing look. “During snowstorms, as you say.”

 

“Whaddaya do?” asked the cowboy, interest plain as he glanced at the different cuts of wood all around. “Figurines? Reliefs?”

 

“Yes, both,” he responded through a gathering sense of self-consciousness. Wood carving was not something that he invested too much time in, but it was an excellent way to while away the time when the weather precluded travel of any kind. He usually did not produce anything worth remembering, but occasionally he was struck with an idea that he had the skill to adequately pull off.

 

Nevertheless, a twinge of curiosity began to gnaw at Hanzo--from the way he looked at the tools and the way he spoke, it seemed like the cowboy knew something about wood carving.

 

He shoved it down. Whether he did or not was inconsequential.

 

The cowboy suddenly knitted his eyebrows together and frowned. He opened his mouth to say something, hesitated, then seemed to bolster himself to carefully ask, “I ain’ seen any carvings around--what do you do with ‘em?”

 

Hanzo shrugged. “I use them for firewood when I clear out the garbage dump.”

 

The cowboy closed his eyes for a moment. It seemed almost to be against his will, because they popped open and he looked away, coughing into his elbow to hide it. “O-oh. Yeah, I, uh--I guess the shavings would make good kindling and all.”

 

Hanzo was nonplussed by the cowboy’s reaction, but he nodded in agreement. “Yes, exactly.”

 

“Well, this place just keeps springin’ all sorts of surprises on us, Agent Shimada,” said the cowboy with an attempt at a small smile. “Anyway, how’re you gettin’ along with the inventory?”

 

Grateful for the subject change, Hanzo crossed over to the cowboy and handed over the comm. The cowboy cleared his throat as he accepted it and looked it over for a minute or two, flipping through the catalog app and nodding and making small noises of approval. “Looks really good--has Athena been drivin’ you crazy with her obsession with details, though?”

 

Hanzo shook his head. “No, of course not.”

 

“Somehow I knew you wouldn’ mind,” said the cowboy, handing the comm back. “It takes a certain kind of person t’keep up with her attention t’detail without goin’ crazy. She was a godsend back durin’ the old days, though, I don’ mind tellin’ you. Never lost so much as a sock while she was lookin’ after everything.”

 

“It’s kind of you to attribute that to me, Agent McCree, but I have no records of your sock drawer,” said Athena warmly, speaking through Hanzo’s earpiece as well as the cowboy’s. “Perhaps you harbor a slight obsession with organization as well?”

 

“Naw,” said the cowboy with a grin. “You can tell just by lookin’ at me.”

 

Hanzo hid a snort. One could not infer either way from the cowboy’s appearance alone--unless they were willing to extrapolate from how put-together he was even in the middle of nowhere. Not to the point of making an obvious effort, but he wore a wrinkle-free shirt and pants, shined cowboy boots, and his ever-present hat was worn but well-maintained down to the polished bullet cartridges. Even his scruffy beard was slowly revealing itself to be a deliberate choice--in a situation where one might find it easier to let their appearance weather the elements as best it could, the cowboy’s personal grooming had not altered in the least thus far.

 

Unlike Hanzo’s. He was already sporting nearly three days’ worth of stubble--he had not thought to shave that morning in the darkness of the basement. He fought the urge to feel his own face when _that_ self-conscious thought hit him.

 

“Well, I don’ see much of anything I can help with ‘sides givin’ you a hand--but I’m a little famished. You get any dinner yet?”

 

Genji would be on guard duty--but that meant the Omnic monk--

 

“I think it’ll just be me and Mei,” added the cowboy with a trace of reluctance. “‘Reeha just about died of happiness when she heard about the gym, so she’s in there right now, and Zen’s chargin’ while we still got sun. So--if you’re about due for a break--”

 

Hanzo would be past-due for a break if breaks were something he indulged in, so it was the thought to eat while the Omnic monk was occupied that motivated him more. “I will join you,” he said simply, pocketing the comm.

 

The cowboy gave a relieved nod and together they walked to the eastern house, shutting the side door of the garage firmly behind them. Hanzo glanced at the barn as they went, but if Agent Pharah was within, there was no sign of her--the side door there was closed. She must be using the interior lights.

 

The cowboy deferred to Hanzo when they approached the door to allow him to enter the house first, to Hanzo’s slight consternation. He rectified the situation by standing off to one side so that the cowboy could sit and clean off his shoes first--which seemed to provoke a similar consternated reaction from him, but the cowboy did not press the point. He merely rushed to wipe off his soles as quickly as possible before he stood and gestured at the stool as he walked off to the kitchen.

 

Hanzo had just sat when a knock came at the door. “Hello?” came Agent Mei’s timid voice. “Anyone there?”

 

“Come in, Agent Mei,” said Hanzo, trying to keep a hint of annoyance out of his voice, mostly because he recognized the petulance of it. It annoyed him when Agent D.Va showed no respect for his living space and it annoyed him when Agent Mei _did_ \--he would have to find a way to sort out the hypocrisy, especially since Agent Mei had done nothing to merit it.

 

“Hello!” she said, all smiles as she stepped inside. “What do you think of Ms. Vaswani’s idea, Agent Shimada? I think it’s working great, don’t you?”

 

He nodded as he dried off his feet. “Yes,” he said, “I am sorry that she was so discomfited, though.”

 

Agent Mei’s smile faded to a thoughtful expression. “Yeah--more than I would’ve expected, actually. I’m starting to wonder if that might be a--a _thing_ for her. She seems to need--” She waved her hand a little as Hanzo stood and she took his place on the stool. “--I dunno how to put it, exactly, but doing things the _right way_ seems important to her, and she’s not shy to tell people exactly what needs to happen, you know? McCree, do you see what I’m saying?”

 

“I think I do,” said the cowboy as he came back from the kitchen, a stack of MREs in his arms. “She’s got a particular way of doin’ things, and she ain’ afraid t’let you know when you’re doin’ it wrong--usually. Right now she’s bitin’ her tongue more often than not--and she don’ like it at all.”

 

Agent Mei shook her head as she finished cleaning the underside of her thick boots--they looked almost like alpine or even mountaineering boots. Hanzo thought he could even see attachments for crampons not unlike the ones that attached directly to his feet. “This can’t be easy for her, then,” she murmured as she moved off the stool directly into a kneeling position, shuffling up the table. “She’s probably used to a lot more control over her life.”

 

“Well--” began the cowboy as he divvied out the MREs, three for him, three for Hanzo, three for Agent Mei, to join the water jug still on the table. “Yes and no. I think she’s used t’control for sure--Vishkar ain’ earned a reputation for heavy-handedness for nothin’. So she might be used t’having some control, but not necessarily _self_ -control. Or--well, that ain’ the right word, more like--”

 

“Self-determination,” supplied Hanzo quietly.

 

The cowboy nodded enthusiastically. “There we go.” He noisily tore open all three of his MREs before he continued. “This might be the first time she’s been in a position where she’s out from under Vishkar’s thumb and findin’ out what was important t’them versus what’s important t’her. Assumin’ she’s for real, o’ course--otherwise she just might be strugglin’ not t’tell us all off for not adherin’ t’Vishkar protocols. Lord knows we’re breakin’ plenty.”

 

Agent Mei giggled. “Just a few! Should I see if I can look some of them up, just to see if we can make her more comfortable?”

 

“Naw,” said the cowboy, rubbing his chin with his flesh hand. “Naw, let _her_ tell us. We’ve already demonstrated with the shoe thing that we’re willin’ t’play ball. Let’s keep that up as much as we can--she can suggest something and we can take her up on it--or gently explain why we can’. Either way, we’ll be communicatin’ and reinforcin’ a sense of trust. We might short-circuit some opportunities if we’re too proactive. _But--”_ he leaned forward slightly, “--go ahead and look ‘em anyway, just so we can be prepared. If we give her the impression that we’re trippin’ all over ourselves t’keep her happy--”

 

Agent Mei leveled a cool look at him. “Always so calculated,” she said, shaking her head. “Can I look them up just to be nice? Not just to look nice?”

 

The cowboy leaned back. “Is there a difference with you?” he asked with a wan smile.

 

“Uh--maybe?” she said, looking from the cowboy to Hanzo and back again.

 

Hanzo tried not to snort. He rather doubted it.

 

But the conversation had not broached what Hanzo was most interested in--whether or not the cowboy had begun his interrogation, and what he had learned if he had. Given the cowboy’s--communicativeness--on other subjects, he had rather expected him to launch into a detailed description of everything he had learned thus far as soon as he was able. But perhaps that was an imprudent assumption--perhaps the cowboy needed to be sure of the information he gleaned from the Vishkar agent before he disseminated it. That would be the more prudent action, Hanzo supposed.

 

The conversation all but died as the three of them dug into their meals. Hanzo still did not feel particularly hungry, but this was the first meal in two days where neither exhaustion nor objectionable company stood in the way of adequately fueling himself, and it felt imperative to take advantage of it while he could--especially since the Omnic monk, the most objectionable company with no current occupation, could conceivably appear at any moment.

 

Agent Mei and the cowboy were digging into their own meals with obvious genuine enthusiasm--he could only imagine that this may be breakfast for Agent Mei and that the cowboy had likely skipped lunch as Hanzo had done. Between the three of them, there was little further conversation until they were all about halfway done--then, in an apparent stroke of bad luck, a knock came from the door. Hanzo froze, fully expecting the Omnic monk, and a sharp glance from the cowboy only seemed to confirm his fears.

 

But instead of the Omnic monk entering, the cowboy called out, “C’mon in, ‘Reeha!” and Agent Pharah entered, wiping her brow despite the tanktop revealing her arms and broad shoulders and despite the cold that flowed in after her. “Hello, everyone,” she said somewhat breathlessly as she sat on the stool. “Have you earned your food like I just did? Because I doubt it!” she laughed, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a whoosh.

 

“I’ve never earned an honest anything in my life,” said the cowboy roguishly. “So who’s the real winner here?”

 

“The bounty hunter that bags your sorry ass,” Agent Pharah shot back. She stood and wandered into the kitchen, wobbling slightly as she went. Hanzo frowned after her--surely it was excessive to push one’s body to the limit in the middle of a mission.

 

Apparently the cowboy had a similar opinion. “You gonna be ready when Vishkar attacks in fifteen minutes?” he called over his shoulder before he took another bite of tuna.

 

“Sounds like the perfect cooldown,” Agent Pharah retorted. She took three MREs of her own out of a cupboard but did not bother to return to the table--she dropped them on the counter and began tearing into them right then and there, almost chugging a bottle of water before beginning to wolf down the food, starting with the tuna. After she had powered through all three cans in all three MREs, she paused long enough to say, “Thanks for taking the time to set up your gym for us, Agent Shimada. After a session with the ice queen, it was just what I needed.”

 

“Not at all, Agent Pharah,” he replied.

 

At the same time, Agent Mei leaned forward and asked, “Did it not go well, then?”

 

The cowboy scowled as he finished chewing on a bite. “A little _too_ well, actually. That’s one reason I’m anxious t’keep her happy--she’s got a _lot_ of information, cuz Vishkar’s been keepin’ busy.”

 

“Oh?” asked Agent Mei with foreboding.

 

“Oh yeah. Let’s just say that Luz got ‘em out of Rio in the nick of time--if we can confirm what she’s been sayin’. Luz’s actually gettin’ in contact with some of his _compatriotas_ t’do just that. She’s got some serious allegations about certain higher-ups in Vishkar’s hierarchy--some of which she admits that she herself carried out under their orders, in Rio and elsewhere.”

 

Agent Mei’s eyes widened while Hanzo’s narrowed.

 

“Such as?” asked Hanzo quietly.

 

The cowboy sighed. “Vishkar’s been playin’ dirty for a while, and she was content t’play along for one reason or another--but Vishkar or someone in Vishkar’s made a move that she couldn’ stomach.” He looked from Hanzo to Agent Mei. “She says someone in Vishkar cleared the way for the Talon attack on the Satellite Campus.”

 

Agent Mei gasped, while Hanzo sat back, lips pursed, brow furrowed in thought.

 

“That make any sense to you, Agent Shimada?” asked the cowboy, lips thin.

 

“Their security was low. Unacceptably low, given Agent Lúcio’s--” Hanzo froze in mid-sentence. Agent Lúcio had encountered low security that had been written off as a kind of lumbering corporate folly--but had Vishkar not been placing its developments in Rio de Janeiro’s _favelas_ , where they would be expected to have _more_ security rather than less?

 

A series of dots connected with a snap, like a displaced bone snapping back into a joint.

 

“The Talon raid was supposed to occur in Rio de Janeiro,” murmured Hanzo. “But Agent Lúcio got there first, forcing Vishkar to evacuate its personnel--and equipment--back to India. To the Satellite Campus specifically.”

 

“The extra stuff, at least, that they couldn’ find room for in Utopaea,” confirmed the cowboy, before he smirked. “Since they couldn’ just make space for it--or could they?”

 

“They chose not to,” Agent Mei joined in, her eyes growing wider. “Because an attack on Utopaea could never succeed--you could never get enough of them out of the way, even working from the inside, so you’d have to shunt it somewhere else where you could.”

 

“Somewhere that also did not have the space, but _could--_ if they reconfigured the Campus,” said Hanzo, staring at the far wall.

 

“Leaving it wide open,” finished Agent Pharah, a scowl twisting her pretty face, “for Talon to waltz in, grab tons of experimental Vishkar technology, and waltz out.”

 

There was silence for a few beats.

 

“And she has proof of this?” Hanzo asked the cowboy and Agent Pharah, eyes narrowed.

 

“She has records of strange, nonsensical orders and personal testimony of the underhanded tactics Vishkar resorted to in Rio,” said the cowboy with a shrug. “Up to and includin’ the competitor’s HQ she blew up when they were initially awarded the redevelopment project.”

 

“She blew up a building?” gasped Agent Mei.

 

“She claims that she infiltrated it to look for dirt on their rival and set up several Vishkar hardlight constructs inside to ensure her safety,” said Agent Pharah soberly, “which her supervisor then used as improvised charges to bring the building down--supposedly without her knowledge. She suspects the same supervisor of being the Talon liaison, incidentally.”

 

“Ko--Korpa?” tried Hanzo, thinking back to the conversation between the Vishkar agent and the two supervisors in the As You Like It Café.

 

“Korpal,” corrected the cowboy. “Sanjay Korpal, head of the Advanced Architech Division, and thus heavily involved in several key departments, includin’ R&D, Internal Security, and Public Outreach.”

 

Another short silence ensued that was broken by Agent Mei. “So it’s plausible,” she said slowly, “but we only have her word. We need to verify the records and look for corroborative evidence.”

 

“Winston, Athena, and Luz are on the case--Winston and Athena are examinin’ both Vishkar and Talon’s activities over the past little t’see if they can independently establish points of contact. Luz is talkin’ t’his people t’see if they can find any evidence of Talon movements in and around Rio before Vishkar was forced out. And we’ll keep talkin’ with Ms. Vaswani, o’ course, t’see what else she’s got for us.”

 

The cowboy chuckled after he listed off Overwatch’s efforts. “Hell of a first day, though. I don’ think Overwatch has gotten a leak this big since--” he suddenly cut himself off, eyes slightly widened, before he grinned. “--I started singin’ for Gabe in a l’il interrogation room in Santa Fe. Bein’ offered a way outta supermax does wonders for your repertoire.”

 

Agent Mei smiled uncertainly, but Agent Pharah laughed outright. “Yeah, and I bet Gabe’s ears didn’t start bleeding back then since you hadn’t ruined your sweet angel voice yet.”

 

“Angels ain’ got character, so no big loss there,” said the cowboy, twisting around to face her with a wide smile.

 

Hanzo clearly recognized a misdirection when he saw one. He focused on the back of the cowboy’s head with a cool look as he wondered what kind of leak could still require the cowboy’s silence.

 

He picked at his food as the conversation devolved into non-vicious barbs traded between Agent Pharah and the cowboy, with Agent Mei occasionally _ooh--_ ing at a particularly good jab, before he remembered himself and began forcing himself to quickly chew his way through the rest of his meal.

 

His own accomplishment of infiltrating the Satellite Campus looked increasingly lacking. If the Vishkar agent was telling the truth, then it was likely that the hordes of Vishkar personnel he had seen massing in their dormitories in Pagidyala should have been in the Satellite Campus from the start--or a large percentage of them at the very least. Hanzo could soothe his pride with the knowledge that the whole mission had stank of ease almost from the beginning, but it was still disturbing to know that his success had been thanks to riding on the coattails of a terrorist attack--and possibly a major conspiracy.

 

He grit his teeth at the thought. If there was anything positive that could be said of the last ten years, it was complete freedom from _conspiracies._ The intrigues of the yakuza had been a constant low-level headache hovering in the back of his mind from age twelve to age twenty-eight, and the simplification from “keep track of a half-dozen major factions and the two dozen minor factions scrambling about their ankles with law enforcement agencies both international and domestic sprinkled liberally throughout” to “survive at all costs” had been a not insignificant reason he had endured the constant chase and omnipresent paranoia of the last decade. Returning to a world of factions and defections and machinations was a sad state of affairs that Hanzo did not welcome at all.

 

But he had little choice in the matter.

 

“Alright, _alright,_ you rapscallion,” laughed the cowboy as he stood. “If that’s what it takes t’silence your _slander,_ so be it. We’ll see who runs circles around who!”

 

Agent Pharah stretched casually with no evidence whatsoever of her earlier fatigue. “You’re on. C’mon, Mei, Shimada., we’ll need impartial judges.”

 

“Oh!” said Agent Mei, glancing at Hanzo. “Ac--actually, I was going to catch some sleep before my shift--I’m still kinda getting used to the time change.”

 

Hanzo sighed internally, but before he could acquiesce, Agent Mei added, “But I do have something to ask Agent Shimada beforehand.”

 

Both Agent Pharah and the cowboy raised an eyebrow each, but rather than press the issue, both of them bustled outside, still sniping at each other in low faces and with a backward glance from the cowboy.

 

Agent Mei continued to calmly eat until the door closed behind them. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure they were well and truly gone before she smiled awkwardly at Hanzo. “I, uh--I’ve got a request for you. Feel free to turn me down! It’s not the least bit important!”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow at her earnestness. “What do you require, Agent Mei?”

 

“Well, uh--” she hesitated for a bare moment before she blurted, “Would--would you play the piano for me?”

 

His jaw came very, very close to dropping, only just avoiding it by opening his mouth to instead ask the question, “Why?”

 

If she was startled by the question itself or his utterly disbelieving tone, she bore it well with a nervous smile. “W-well, it’s just--I used to have friends--a friend, actually, who used to play her keyboard for us all the time. We were pretty isolated there, too, so it was--it was nice.” She paused and took a deep breath when her voice broke slightly on the last word. Hanzo seized on that to rein in his astonishment--this was obviously a sensitive subject, and he would do well to treat it with equal sensitivity.

 

He glanced at the piano behind him--it had several supplies stacked on either end, but the instrument itself was accessible. He swallowed and looked back to Agent Mei. “I--”

 

His hesitancy seemed to instantly destroy her resolve. “It’s okay!” she all but squeaked, a blush rising in her face. “It was pretty forward of me to ask, I know, so it’s fine that you don’t want to. I’ll just, uh--” Glancing down at her food, she seemed to fixate on the fact that there was still a fair amount of food left, and she began to shovel it into her mouth even as she half rose from her kneeling position, apparently torn between leaving no leftovers and leaving as soon as possible.

 

Hanzo regarded her with a mix of amusement and pity. It _was_ forward of her to ask--but that only meant that she wanted to hear him play strongly enough to overpower even her considerable shy deference.

 

And, really, her request was harmless enough.

 

“I have not played for an audience for some time,” he said quietly. She froze in mid-bite, staring at him. “But after I have had an opportunity to practice with the aim of being heard, I would not mind playing for you.”

 

Agent Mei swallowed her mouthful and beamed at him for a moment before a shadow passed over her face once more. “Thank you!” she said with a small smile. “If you decide you don’t want to after all, just let me know! I won’t hold it against you! But if you don’t mind, then I’ll look forward to it!”

 

Hanzo nodded. “Give me two or three days,” he requested. “After that I should be able to perform adequately.”

 

“Oh, don’t worry about how well you perform!” said Agent Mei, her smile widening. “Opara was an amateur--we were glad to listen to everything and anything she played for us. It was just--nice, is all.”

 

She returned to a kneeling position as she spoke, and after Hanzo nodded his acknowledgement, the two of them sedately and quietly finished up their meals.

 

Agent Mei finished off one last bite and stood. “Well, I’m gonna go take that nap,” she said brightly. “Thank you so much, Agent Shimada! I’ll see you in the morning!”

 

“Good night, Agent Mei. Good luck with guard duty,” he said softly. She gave a short laugh as she disposed of her MREs and waved as she went out the door, disappearing into the ruddy evening light.

 

Hanzo looked after her for a long while.

 

Was this something he was allowing himself? Or was this something dedicated to the service of Overwatch?

 

He rubbed at his face, groaning aloud at the rough sandpaper surrounding the soft bristles of his beard. He would have to take his personal grooming firmly back in hand in the morning.

 

He almost turned to the piano before he remembered the presence of the Omnic monk--but it was somewhat odd that he had not made an appearance during this impromptu dinner given how loud their dinner group had been. He seemed keen enough to socialize on the Orca after they picked him up in Nepal.

 

Of course, Hanzo had only assumed he was in the house. In reality he had no idea where he was.

 

He slowly tapped at his earpiece. “Athena?” he asked quietly. “Where is Agent Zenyatta?”

 

“Agent Zenyatta is currently in the gym,” Athena answered instantly, to his surprise.

 

Hanzo was alone, then. He would have to play quietly to avoid drawing attention even through the walls, but--

 

“Would you advise me if anyone approaches the house, please?” he said just as softly as he stood and went to the piano.

 

“Of course, Agent Shimada.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

He sat on the bench.

 

Twenty-five hours after that almost debilitating wave of exhaustion, Hanzo lifted the fallboard, placed his fingers on the keys, and began to play.

 

It was a service, he decided, and thus allowable.

 

Which was fortunate, really. It had been some time since a service had been enjoyable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set up, set up, and--a little more set up. 
> 
> And all in the service of the next chapter. :|
> 
> I am very pleased to announce that I have found a job! As I was hoping all the way back in the notes for Chapter 7, I'm going to be an ESL teacher in Taiwan starting April 16! I'm very excited!
> 
> The job is part-time, so I don't foresee any disruption to Afterdrop's (admittedly undependable) publishing schedule, but I do plan to get one or two (more exciting) chapters done before I start just in case my writing suffers as I adjust to the new job in a new country--as always you can refer to my Tumblr at [ClaroQueQuiza](https://claroquequiza.tumblr.com) to see how I'm doing!
> 
> I'm also very pleased to showcase more stupendous fanart by these very kind and gracious people!!
> 
> First, [Lady Nina](https://ladyninadraws.tumblr.com/) illustrated the [opening scene of Chapter 17](https://ladyninadraws.tumblr.com/post/170700109656/hanzo-crept-through-the-undergrowth-the-damp), showing Hanzo ready for action with beautiful Storm Bow, as well as [this peaceful landscape of the homestead!](https://ladyninadraws.tumblr.com/post/171571118461/my-take-on-the-homestead-from-claroquequiza)
> 
> Next, [Taunting Crow](https://tauntingcrow.tumblr.com) drew [this wonderful, calming portrait of Hanzo stargazing on the ferry](https://tauntingcrow.tumblr.com/post/171272600838/he-waved-at-the-attendant-to-indicate-it-was) in Chapter 15!  
> 
> [Stupidnames](https://stupidnames.tumblr.com) continues to amaze with exacting attention to detail with  [this moment from Chapter 2 when Genji shields Hanzo from McCree!](http://stupidnames.tumblr.com/post/171743474946/it-took-over-a-month-and-a-lot-of-screaming)
> 
> [Madramaut](https://madramaut.tumblr.com) knew the way to my heart is long-haired Hanzo, and BOY HOWDY, [does he look good!!!](http://madramaut.tumblr.com/post/171768477821/ive-been-so-sick-in-the-past-few-days-that-ive)
> 
> And finally, [Nimpnawak](http://nimpnawakproduction.tumblr.com) [greatly simplifies matters in this AU](http://nimpnawakproduction.tumblr.com/post/171214786967/the-very-important-things-that-happened-on-my). XD
> 
> Thank you all so much!!! You're all so wonderful for drawing and sharing these!!!!


	19. A Simple Question

Hanzo managed to get a surprising amount of practice in before Athena warned him of somebody's approach. At first his fingers were encumbered by a heavy, almost numb feeling from being idle too long, but the time given him during the typhoons was far from being in vain--he was playing naturally in fairly short order. He wandered through various memorized compositions, listening and feeling his way through them with a critical frame of mind, trying to determine which might be improved enough to withstand a recital.

 

He was concentrating so hard on his task that he almost started when his earpiece chimed and Athena came on the line.

 

“Agent Zenyatta and Agent Pharah are approaching the house.”

 

“Thank you,” he said, immediately setting the fallboard down over the keys. He scooped Storm Bow and his quiver off the floor and looked around the room for a moment, debating what to appear to be doing, and the bare spot where his bedding should be provided a timely reminder to bring in the blankets from the clothesline. He wavered for a bare moment before he retreated to the basement to fetch the washtub, more as an excuse not to run into the two Overwatch agents right at the door than to carry the blankets more easily.

 

He returned up the stairs with the tub under one arm, stopping to listen at the top. The two agents’ voices, Agent Pharah’s strong contralto versus the Omnic monk’s gentle tenor, leaked through the sturdy wood of the door, but not enough to be intelligible. He took a centering breath as headed back out into the hallway.

 

The two of them were standing together in the kitchen, Agent Pharah with another MRE by her elbow and the Omnic monk standing before her--and he _was_ standing, with the unhemmed and somehow tattered camo pants brushing at his blocky feet. Hanzo felt a twinge of unexpected annoyance at the sight--the monastic camo uniform could not be very old. The look was purposefully shabby for aesthetic or ascetic reasons, neither of which Hanzo found particularly legitimate.

 

But that was not only none of his concern, it was disrespectful, so he attempted to shove his sentiments aside.

 

“Ah, there you are, Shimada-san,” said the Omnic monk in his breathy voice when Hanzo emerged from the hallway. “You missed a mighty contest of wills just now. It was nearly impossible to tell which of the two was most stubborn.”

 

“Me. It was me,” Agent Pharah declared, speaking far too loudly for the indoor space and throwing her head back proudly and carelessly. Her hair was tied back in a bun that sat at the base of her neck, so instead of tossing it, she only sent a few droplets of sweat spraying across the countertop. Hanzo only just managed not to crinkle his nose as she continued. “Jess was struggling to keep up even though he hasn’t done any heavy lifting today, unlike his opponent.” The Omnic monk chuckled softly as she grinned broadly, and it hardly faded when she faced Hanzo and said, “But we broke one of the climbing things on the wall. It was Jess who actually broke it, but it was my idea to use them as part of the challenge instead of the chin-up bars--I thought it’d be fun to have uneven grips and forgot how huge that knucklehead is. We couldn’t find another one--you got some extras hidden somewhere?”

 

“No,” said Hanzo as he moved slowly towards the front door, walking a fine line between avoiding becoming entrapped and avoiding seeming rude. “I replace them as needed. I will make another one in the next few days if I have time.”

 

Agent Pharah’s grin took on a skeptical air. “You _made_ those? Where? When?”

 

“The western garage contains woodworking tools,” he said, trying not to sound short as he edged closer to the door.

 

“Ah, yes,” the Omnic monk said. “Athena mentioned them earlier. Is that how you’ve managed to keep everything here so well-maintained?”

 

Hanzo stopped and turned to face the duo. Agent Pharah seemed casual and cavalier enough not to mind if Hanzo displayed just a little of the same by walking straight on by--but if the Omnic monk wished to speak, Hanzo had no choice but to indulge him.

 

“Yes,” he said, his chest constricting slightly at the sight of the artificially serene face. “They have been particularly helpful in sealing the buildings against vermin and repairing the roofs after windstorms.”

 

“I can imagine,” said the Omnic monk, folding his hands together. “It’s truly impressive what you have amassed here, Shimada-san. Have you given any thought to transferring your possessions elsewhere?”

 

Hanzo fought to keep the muscles in his jaw from tensing. “My custom is to abandon a site when it is compromised, b--”

 

Agent Pharah began to speak over the last word. “Are you still on about that?” she said, her smile disappearing. “Jess offered to take some stuff back in the Orca yesterday, remember?”

 

“Agent McCree is having me complete an inventory to see what may be useful to Overwatch,” he said coolly. “Incidentally, I will need to access the western house and all its rooms, Agent Pharah--will you speak to Agents Mei and D.Va and advise me when there is a convenient time for me to do so?”

 

“Sure,” she said, giving him a shrewd look. “So--does that mean if we see something we like, we should come to you to see if it’s available and how much you want for it?”

 

“No,” said Hanzo, shaking his head to dismiss the notion. “Were it not for the mission, nearly everything here would be abandoned already. You may treat it as such.”

 

Agent Pharah shifted on her feet, putting a hand on her hip as she leveled a disbelieving look at him. “You don’t really expect us to ransack your own house while you’re standing right there, do you?”

 

“This is not my house,” said Hanzo flatly. “and there is nothing here--”

 

“--that you can’t afford to lose, yeah, yeah, I remember,” she interrupted. “But you don’t _have_ to leave everything this time. There’s got to be _something_ you’re going to keep from here.”

 

Hanzo stared at her, trying to work out her angle. She had met him only yesterday. Before then she had only secondhand accounts of him, two of which detailed brutal attacks. Why was she so fixated on Hanzo taking something from the homestead?

 

She stared right back with a deepening frown.

 

“There is time for him to change his mind if he wishes.”

 

Agent Pharah blinked in surprise and turned back to the Omnic monk at her side as though she had forgotten he was there.

 

“Shimada-san is in a mindset that precludes thinking of personal effects,” he continued blithely. “Genji was similar. When I first met him, he had only the swords on his back and two liters of coolant--even less than I had, and I’m a homeless wanderer.”

 

Hanzo stiffened, and his grip on the tub at his side tightened until his fingernails were bent against the unyielding plastic.

 

“What we see around us here are not personal possessions,” the Omnic monk continued, tilting his head slightly, “Only tools ready to be abandoned at a moment’s notice. He has thought of them as such for many years.” He patted Agent Pharah’s shoulder. “It can be difficult to adjust one’s thinking when those reasons suddenly no longer apply.”

 

“Hmm,” said Agent Pharah, her eyes narrowed. Hanzo tried to ward off the dismayed wave of self-consciousness when he imagined what she must see, shoulders tense, face pinched, free hand clenched into a fist.

 

Whatever she saw, after a few seconds she only shrugged her shoulders at it and turned to her MRE. “Well, I say you’d better jump on this opportunity,” she said as she tore off its plastic sleeve. “Something tells me that if you leave with nothing you’re not going to come back for it later.”

 

“That, too, may change,” said the Omnic monk, the two lines of his faceplate seeming to stare directly into Hanzo’s eyes.

 

Hanzo tore his teeth apart to say, “Thank you for your concern. Excuse me, I must gather my bedding.” Bobbing his head in farewell, he turned on his heel and walked to the door, trying to rein in his speed so he _was_ walking rather than fleeing after giving such an open and pathetic excuse to end the conversation.

 

Diffuse twilight greeted him as he escaped outside, the sun having sunk behind the mountains. The tiny faint red spark of Mars was visible just above the ridge--it would probably wink out before he even returned to the house with his bedding. The rest of the brighter stars were speckled across the sky, with more appearing by the minute as the Earth’s shadow rose to extinguish the pink and orange hues of the Belt of Venus floating above the mountaintops.

 

Hanzo took very little of it in as he marched across the driveway to the clothesline. They fluttered in a slow breeze, which boded well for their dryness, but it was hard to tell if they were damp when he tested them--the fabric was cold to the touch. In some ways, it would have been easier if it were midwinter, when the water would have frozen and sublimated and just the fact that the fabric was not stiff or crunchy indicated it was ready.

 

Hanzo spent more time than strictly necessary testing them, both to coax his shoulders to relax and to avoid returning to the uncomfortable scene he had only just left. It was, perhaps, time well-spent--he managed to notice the sky above him before too long.

 

Still, he tugged the blankets off the clothesline with sharp movements, the line itself bouncing as he snatched the clothespins off one-by-one and let them plunk into the tub. He folded the blankets more aggressively but no less precisely than usual, dropping them in a neat pile in the middle of the tub before he unhooked the clothesline and allowed it to ratchet back with a _snap._

 

Just as the sound of it died away, Agent Pharah emerged from the eastern house. She reacted to the increasingly cold air with an appropriate shudder given her tank top before she spotted Hanzo.

 

“Hey, you got a second?” she called over, walking with great strides to him. “Just real quick,” she said without really waiting for an answer, sticking her hands in the pockets of her nylon pants and pressing her arms against her sides, “I’m sorry if I’m coming off as pressuring you.”

 

Hanzo blinked in surprise, but she cut off the automatic denial that was rising in his throat.

 

“I understand sacrifice and cutting the dead weight,” she said, jutting out her chin a little. “Too much sometimes, as it turns out, but only when I thought it was absolutely necessary. Otherwise, I like to keep what little I have.” She stopped with a studying look. “So I guess what I’m trying to figure out is why you thought it was necessary to spend all this effort in gathering all of this,” she tossed a look over the homestead rather than wave a hand, keeping both of them secure and warm in her pockets, “and then spend no effort at all to keep even a little of it.”

 

Hanzo tried to hold back a grimace under Agent Pharah’s rather intense gaze as he worked out an appropriate response. After a few moments, he quietly said, “Everything here served the purpose of staving off the effects of isolation. Now that this place is no longer isolated, they have lost their purpose. That is all.”

 

After a moment, Agent Pharah gave a tiny nod, of acknowledgement more than anything. “Alright,” she said, her voice neutral. “So Zen was pretty much right, then.”

 

Hanzo swallowed the slight bitter taste of the words at first, but he still managed to say, “Yes--largely.”

 

“Largely?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, and he cursed his pride for forcing the annotation out of him.

 

He set his jaw before saying, “The idea that I have rejected material goods is flawed. I have many possessions scattered throughout Japan that I have gathered through the years . Agent McCree can tell you of a cache we visited so I could restock. There are more, all of which contain costly equipment, and I have ample monetary funds besides. I have never been in--” Mortifyingly, he stumbled over his words for a split-second, but recovered just as quickly. “--Genji’s position. He was obviously destitute when he met Agent Zenyatta. I have never been so.”

 

Agent Pharah nodded again, consideringly this time. Then she asked, “Tell me something: what do you have that you would never abandon?”

 

Rather tellingly, Hanzo could only stare at her.

 

Her eyebrows shot up. “Not even _that?”_ She reached out and rather impudently plucked at Storm Bow’s string where it trailed over Hanzo’s shoulder before she stuck her hand back in her pocket.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips, both at the touch and her apparent incredulity. “This is not my first bow by any means,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant, but he could see what she was getting at, and she was hitting close to what she would think was the mark--he _had_ held on to his bows when everything else had been lost more than once--but despite his misplaced sentimentality mourning them when even they had to be sacrificed, the real purpose was quite simply that his bow was the last thing standing between himself and death besides his own body. That he could not help but treasure them spoke more to his cowardice than his sentimentality.

 

She did not look convinced, and then she asked a fatal question.

 

“Do you call it anything?”

 

It took a bit of time, long enough for her to realize her “victory”, before he could reply. He tried not to growl the words. “Storm Bow.”

 

She smiled--she was obviously trying to keep it from getting too big, but she smiled. “Well,” she said warmly, “I think we’ll have room for Storm Bow at least.” A large shiver ran through her, and she pressed her arms closer to her sides in response. “Brr! I’m going inside,” she said, still smiling. “Have a good night, Agent Shimada.” She nodded and turned around, jogging awkwardly towards the western house.

 

He watched her go with a sour expression that he did not try to hide since there were no witnesses. He should have put in the effort, though, because he had to switch quickly to a neutral expression when she suddenly spun around just before she reached the door and called, “By the way, me and D.Va think sometime before 0800 would be best--but we still have to see what Mei thinks. I’ll let you know!”

 

He nodded, and she turned around and knocked on the door and waited a moment before she entered, leaving him alone.

 

He took several deep breaths.

 

It was difficult dealing with Agent Pharah.

 

In some ways she reminded him of Agent D.Va. There was a similar level of assertiveness and directness, a certain bullheaded tenacity that shrugged off many common civilities. Agent Pharah was unquestionably the easier of the two to endure, however--whether it was her age or some other factor, she was more tempered, less brash, more purposeful, and less flippant. On the surface, at least, she appeared to extend some respect as well as expect it, while Agent D.Va demanded it while often returning none at all.

 

The difference was somewhat interesting, given that both women came from military backgrounds, though he was unsure if Agent Pharah had any formal military service before being employed by a security firm--but given Helix’s fearsome reputation and responsibilities, it was close enough.

 

He found himself wondering, as he picked up the tub and picked his way back towards the eastern house, whether Agent D.Va would mature into someone resembling Agent Pharah--he was not familiar enough with the MEKA program to know if it followed the ROK’s usual two-year compulsory military service, and he was even more ignorant of Agent D.Va’s personal ambitions, but he could readily imagine her with Agent Pharah’s bearing, given time.

 

Given _much_ time.

 

His thoughts came to a screeching halt when he reached the door. The Omnic monk was about as likely to be waiting on the other side as not.

 

He looked over his shoulder at the western garage. Perhaps he could waste an hour or so in cataloging more tools to improve the odds of not meeting him--but the only guarantee would be to wait until after his guard duty shift started at midnight.

 

Hanzo sighed. He needed to get an earlier start on sleep than that, given how poorly the previous night went.

 

He almost opened the door without warning before it occurred to him to knock first. He did so, waiting a moment for a response, and felt a wild leap of hope when there was none--

 

\--but the Omnic monk nodded at him from behind the counter when he entered.

 

“Shimada-san,” he greeted, bowing his head. He waited for Hanzo to wordlessly return the bow, clean his feet, and set the tub silently on the ground beside his sleeping space before he made the sound of clearing a throat despite having none, the electronic sound of it slightly jarring. “Shimada-san, I wonder if I could see the orb that you’ve been looking after.”

 

Hanzo stiffened and stood upright to shoot the Omnic monk a cool look. He _shrugged_ in response, the brass orbs floating around his neck shifting slightly to accommodate the motion. “I did my best to find an adequate term,” he said with a wry note in his modulated voice. “She hasn’t asked for it back, and you haven’t accepted it. It is kind of you to look after it while we sort out the stalemate.”

 

Hanzo bit back words and fought down an expression that would have fairly regrettable. Instead, he turned away and knelt before his cello case, avoiding the pocket with the orb for a full thirty seconds to give him time to compose himself.

 

Perhaps Agent Pharah’s presence was a moderating effect as far as the Omnic monk was concerned--Hanzo was finding it much harder to keep his composure when they were alone.

 

He finally withdrew the warm metal sphere and stood to give it to the Omnic monk, who had thankfully not moved to come fetch it. He made sure to come somewhat closer than he was comfortable with when he handed it over the counter--there was a bend in his elbow, which was infinitely better than holding it straight out to keep his distance.

 

The Omnic monk accepted it, first turning it over with his skeletal fingers with his head bent over it before he released it to float over his cupped palms. It rotated slowly while the circles etched into its surface pulsed with white light.

 

The Omnic monk hummed thoughtfully as the light dimly glinted off his faceplate. “May I take custody of it for the night?” he asked, looking up. “It requires upkeep that only those of the Shambali can provide.”

 

Hanzo’s eyebrow quirked, and to his shame the Omnic monk laughed. “My brethren have been forwarding updates to me despite my resignation from their ranks,” he said smoothly.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips, hoping to convey regret. “Of course,” he said before he gestured at the orb. “Do all you think necessary.”

 

The Omnic monk hummed again. “I shall. It’s lucky there’s sufficient power here for me to do such tasks. As you can imagine, the wilderness is often unkind to electronic beings, but here there is far more than I know what to do with.” He chuckled. “Perhaps you should send word back to the Satellite Campus to begin installing windmills to help with their power problem.”

 

Hanzo blinked slowly.

 

“Thank you, Shimada-san,” said the Omnic monk as he turned away and walked sedately towards the hall. “I believe I will meditate before guard duty. I wish you a pleasant evening.”

 

“And to you,” replied Hanzo, trying to hide his relief.

 

He stood motionless as he waited for the sound of the door closing before relaxing slightly, leaning forward against the counter. Thankfully he did not experience a wave of overwhelming fatigue, but the encounter was far more draining than it should have been.

 

But tonight he still had the energy to properly prepare for bed.

 

He took the nearly empty water jug into the basement to refill it for whomever needed it. As it filled at the waterpump, he sniffed at his armpit and grimaced at the thought of sleeping in clean sheets with the dried sweat, but now it was the cowboy he thought of--he doubted that he would walk in on Hanzo again in the mornings, but he may yet again if he was not expecting Hanzo to be bathing again in the evening.

 

He compromised, scrubbing his face and his armpits with his washcloth but stripping no more than his gi off. The rest could wait until the morning, which could not come soon enough when it came to shaving--the washcloth scraped and caught at his stubble, a most unpleasant sensation.

 

But at the moment he only threw his gi back on, brushed his teeth, and then lugged the water jug back upstairs to thud it heavily on the kitchen counter. He returned to the sitting room to reconstruct the blankets into bedding and slipped underneath, once more backed up against the wall with a clear view of the door, Storm Bow and quiver at hand.

 

Better knowing what was to come was a small blessing--he could expect the Omnic monk to leave a little before midnight and Genji to come back sometime after. The only unknown was the cowboy, but Hanzo was fairly certain he would be in sooner rather than later. His goal, therefore, was to rest more than sleep before midnight to avoid a repeat of almost planting an arrow in the Omnic monk’s throat. Simply knowing what sounds his “guests” produced was a comfort as well, even if those “sounds” were silent. If nothing else, he should not take the sudden click of the door as a sign of imminent attack, and that was most likely to prevent him from shooting quite so automatically.

 

So he focused on his breathing, doing his best to avoid as much conscious thought as possible. It was not the most unpleasant thing to do when he was not breathlessly dreading the unknown actions and habits of his “guests”.

 

Thus he was freer to appreciate the simple warmth of the woolen blankets and pay more attention to how it soaked into the tendons and muscles of his limbs and hands to help ease away the tension of the day, even if only by a small amount. It was not insignificant, however--his stubs especially appreciated the difference as his prosthetics came close to matching body temperature. The motors and batteries within produced some heat, of course, and both were grouped as close to his stubs as possible to ward off the worst of the cold that otherwise would threaten him with frostbite, but nothing could compare to a warm bed--at least, nothing here on the homestead.

 

The cowboy came in soon enough, as expected. His spurs gave ample warning once more as he approached the door, and once again they fell silent once the cowboy stepped inside. Hanzo tracked him audibly as the cowboy made another pit stop in the kitchen. Remembering Genji’s fond recollection of the cowboy’s appetite in earlier times, Hanzo could not help but wonder if he was also taking advantage of plentiful food and training equipment while he could as Hanzo had meant to do--it would explain the improved musculature that Hanzo had noted in India.

 

The cowboy soon moved on to his bedroom, and Hanzo rested easy for a while before he heard soft but solid steps herald the Omnic monk. Hanzo almost snorted--he had evidently abandoned his attempts to not disturb Hanzo after seeing the consequences. Hanzo could not help but vacillate between chagrin at being treated like a dangerous sleeping animal and a certain twisted pleasure that the Omnic monk was treating him as the threat he was.

 

After the Omnic monk left, it only remained to simulate the relaxed and boneless posture of sleep so that Genji might pass him by. Hanzo buried the bottom half of his face in his elbow, leaving only part of his open mouth in view--he would prefer to avoid drooling once more to complete the effect. This time it should suffice to drape the strands of his loose bangs awkwardly over his face, with some sticking uncomfortably to his lips.

 

Genji, unsurprisingly, made almost no noise at all. The door opened softly enough that even Hanzo was unsure he had heard it at all. He only knew someone was there from the fact that someone was there, and the complete lack of any noise whatsoever could only mean it was Genji--unless it was an assassin, of course.

 

Hanzo almost blew his cover when that absurd thought occurred to him--there would be a certain irony if the brother he had thought was an assassin turned out to be an assassin he thought was his brother.

 

The silence was abruptly broken by a single large _glub_ of air from the water jug, but Hanzo did not stir from the gunshot-like noise in the thick, mute air. Genji was simply pouring himself a glass of water and would move on--Hanzo could endure for that long.

 

But Genji did not leave.

 

Instead he simply hovered, his presence pressing against Hanzo’s eyes, ears, and temples in much the same way it had that fateful night in May, where the silence had been so similarly absolute that simply occupying space was enough to betray one’s proximity.

 

For a breathless eternity Hanzo forced his lungs to expand against the mounting constriction in his chest as Genji stood close by, doing--what? Eating? Drinking? Thinking? Meditating? Anything and everything would be a disaster, really, if Genji did it out here.

 

If he knew Hanzo was feigning sleep and was waiting for him to betray his duplicity, he was showing a disconcerting amount of patience. Before--before, he would have spoken up almost immediately, pleased to have caught his proud brother in a lie and eager to knock him down a peg. He could not imagine anyone studying under the tutelage of a monk without learning _something_ of patience, but the complete lack that Genji had as a young man--as the minutes ticked by, Hanzo could not help becoming more and more incredulous that Genji did not call him out if he knew or simply walk away, bored, if he did not.

 

Wrapped up in the drama of breathing, lying motionless, and furiously analyzing the situation, Hanzo almost missed his brother sigh.

 

“What should I say?” he murmured on the fine edge of hearing, and Hanzo’s heart seized within the tightness of his chest.

 

Genji’s voice was not modulated.

 

“How can I reach you, brother?” asked Genji just as quietly, and despite Hanzo’s paranoia, he knew at last that he did not think he could hear. “How--”

 

A pause, and a slight intake of breath, and at long long last, Genji moved away, and opened a door, and disappeared behind it. He moved so openly despite his silence that Hanzo almost followed him with his eyes behind closed eyelids.

 

Once he was alone, Hanzo could not be bothered to force the air into his lungs for a long moment as he stared sightlessly into the darkness.

 

The rest of the night passed away with Hanzo not knowing how much was spent conscious or unconscious--the same thought rang through his mind regardless.

 

Genji was searching for words when he should be relying on action.

 

It was the cowboy who roused him from the ruts being worn into his brain.

 

His footsteps were louder in socks than in cowboy boots, a contradiction that might have been amusing at some other time but at the moment was only vexing. Hanzo listened to the muffled thudding suddenly stop--when the cowboy saw him, he supposed. Rather than allow his “guest” to retreat from whatever business had called him out here, Hanzo blearily blinked his eyes open and caught a glimpse of the cowboy’s dismayed expression in the light filtering in from the hallway. A bit of his annoyance was placated by the fact that he had not noted the light turning on--surely that was a sign he had actually been sleeping and only dreaming of laying sprawled on the floor immersed in thoughts as blinding as the darkness.

 

But the specter of those dark thoughts still hung heavily over him as he sat up, wincing at the pops and creaks in his back.

 

“Mornin’,” said the cowboy hesitantly. “Sorry, I thought you, uh--that you’d be up.”

 

“I am not. I was not,” said Hanzo stupidly, wincing at the feeling of his thoughts and reactions flowing like chilled syrup. He sat completely still, staring in the general direction of the cowboy as he mourned his fatigued state, before the cowboy began shuffling uncomfortably and he realized what he must look like. “Apologies, Agent McCree,” he said thickly as he stood.

 

“Naw, sorry, I, uh--I can get outta your hair and let you get some more sleep,” said the cowboy as he began to back away into the hallway again.

 

“I will not sleep,” said Hanzo shortly as he tried to head off the cowboy and get to the hallway first and the basement door beyond. “So I will take the opportunity to start the day.”

 

“Al-alright,” said the cowboy, doubt filling his voice. “I was just gonna grab a midnight snack, as it were. You wanna grab something out of the pantry while I’m out here?”

 

Hanzo shook his head. Even the slow deliberate motion seemed to make his brains slosh around inside his skull. “N--” he began to say, but his thoughts managed to break free of the brain slurry and catch up with him. “Yes, thank you,” he said instead, abruptly turning to head for the cowboy’s bedroom. He did not even wait to hear the cowboy’s acknowledgement before he was inside and clumsily rummaging around in the crates, but at least he remembered to keep his distance from the cowboy’s possessions in their corner.

 

He soon found what he needed: a box filled with packets of freezedried coffee. In his half-awake state he almost tore one open immediately, but he caught himself in time--the grounds within would be almost impossible to swallow without water, and he did not want to face the cowboy with a mouthful of desiccated powder. He pocketed several packets instead, nearly the equivalent of two full liters of coffee. Even as compromised as he was he did not intend to down all of them at once, but he needed them at the ready. The day was going to be difficult with or without them, but far more difficult without them.

 

He had to escort both D.Va and Genji today after all.

 

He emerged from the bedroom to find the cowboy hovering at the end of the hallway. Hanzo nodded and said, “Thank you, Agent McCree,” before turning and heading for the basement.

 

“Anything else I can do for you while I’m up?” called the cowboy after him.

 

Hanzo paused at the door. “No, thank you,” he said, trying to force his voice into some imitation of wakefulness.

 

The cowboy peered at him with a slight frown. “You gonna be okay t’go check the other buildings? It’s not that high a priority.”

 

“I will be fine, Agent McCree,” replied Hanzo. Rather, he _would_ be fine if he was allowed to get on with it.

 

The cowboy seemed to finally take the hint and nodded, his face shuttering. “Alright. I’ll let you know when breakfast is ready.”

 

“Thank you.” And finally Hanzo was down the steps.

 

He swallowed down three packets of coffee with water from the pump, shivering as freezing drops trailed through his beard and down his neck, but worse was yet to come. He stripped off his gi and flicked on the lights so that he could shave while looking into a small handheld mirror. He scowled at the stubble before he began--he usually only managed to look so wild when people were not looking. It was embarrassing to think that all of Overwatch--plus the Vishkar agent, he supposed--had been watching him get progressively prickler and prickler.

 

At least the freezing water trickling down his neck and chest in combination with the coffee woke him as effectively as the stimulants still hidden in his cello case. There was that, at least.

 

He marched back upstairs pulling his gi on as he went. Darkness greeted him in the hallway; the cowboy had apparently returned to bed. Nodding in satisfaction, Hanzo picked up Storm Bow and his quiver in the sitting room and headed outside--it had been a long time since he had had the opportunity for simple target practice, and he would take advantage of the temporary solitude while it lasted.

 

He carefully stepped out into the chill, still air and silently closed the door behind him, breathing in an unexpectedly free lungful of air as a hidden weight suddenly lifted off his shoulders. He did not bother to analyze the abrupt feeling--he could guess its origin--but it was certainly welcome.

 

For as long as it lasted.

 

“Sup?”

 

Agent D.Va pocketed an electronic device of some kind--it did not seem to be her comm--as she pushed away from leaning on the wall beside the entrance to the western house. She had a heavy dark pink and puffy overcoat over her camo uniform with matching bunny-ear earmuffs and fluffy pink gloves to guard against the cold. She waltzed over to him, her hands deep in her pockets. “Ready to train?” she asked slyly as she eyed his stony face.

 

“Yes,” he managed to say past his considerable surprise--at least his tone was calm. He started off again from the dead stop as he tried to gather his wits--her unexpected appearance should not be quite so disconcerting.

 

He realized what her aim was soon enough.

 

“If you are hoping to see me on the bars, you must wait until tomorrow,” he said, looking straight ahead even as she followed close behind. “I will only be using my bow this morning.”

 

“The same bow that killed a bear?” she asked pleasantly.

 

He pursed his lips. “No. That bow was destroyed years ago.”

 

“Well, shit,” said Agent D.Va, sounding genuinely upset. “RIP, bear bow.”

 

As they approached the gym’s side door, he hoped against hope that she would not ask what the exact circumstances were--it would likely stoke her dislike of him anew, and insufficient caffeine had seeped into his system to help him endure her disdain. If she gave him twenty minutes or so--

 

And, amazingly, she gave him twenty minutes. More than twenty minutes--she did not ask for further details at all. Instead, she fell silent and stood off to the side as he took a position just before the main doors of the barn and went through a routine of stretching, paying special attention to his chilled hands and forearms to fend off the stiffness and work some limber warmth into them. He rather expected her to cut in with some sarcastic observation or jibe at any moment, but the silence stretched on as he tested and adjusted Storm Bow’s string to the optimal tension before he finally took aim at the four targets above the line of crates opposite him, shooting under the arches formed by the asymmetric bars.

 

Four arrows thudded satisfyingly into each bullseye at a leisurely pace. Hanzo was focusing on form and precision today--it had been some time since he had the luxury of doing so.

 

He expected Agent D.Va to tire of the slow, non-flashy display--or at least take out whatever device she had been playing on as she had lain in wait. But he turned out to be greatly mistaken as the time flowed past. Not only did she not tire, she watched with hawklike intensity as he lined up and took each shot, watching him at times as he drew back the string, watching the targets at others to see where the arrows struck.

 

But while her interest did not waver, her silence eventually did. Just as he fired off the last of his standard arrows, leaving only scatter and sonic arrows in his quiver, she asked, “What’re you aiming for?” All four targets resembled pincushions, with arrows splayed across them seemingly at random.

 

“At the targets,” he said simply as the last arrow _thwacked_ into place. He walked forward to gather them for another round.

 

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I got that. _Where_ on the targets? You just aiming wherever or what?”

 

“I am aiming for where I am looking,” he said simply as he plucked each bolt out of the targets. Each arrowhead left a deep mark, but the self-healing plastic began to spring back almost immediately, though it was slowed by the cold. If it were spring, the effect would be almost instantaneous.

 

“Non-shooter on the range,” she said with a robotic lilt, her voice becoming more natural as she approached. “So how do you know if you’re hitting your marks?”

 

“If I hit them.”

 

She huffed irritably as she stopped in front of one of the targets he had not gotten to yet, scrutinizing it. “Okay, see, all you gotta say is ‘I aim for the borders of the circles,’” She pointed at several arrows that had, indeed, sliced into the edges of the white and red concentric circles. “Looks like you missed a few, though, _archer,”_ she teased, grinning at an arrow that had struck in the middle of a red band.

 

“As you say,” said Hanzo with a trace of longsuffering. He had _not_ missed--he had meant to hit there, but there was no way to prove it.

 

She cleared the range as he did, walking back to a safe spot and waving and calling out “Hot range, hot range!” when he retook his firing position. He sighed a little but raised his bow and began again.

 

That became the pattern: silence as Hanzo breathed through the movements, minutely adjusting his stance and pose and feeling the tension and burn in his muscles as he slowly and methodically lined up each shot, working outward from the bullseyes and inward from the edges in turns. Agent D.Va only offered commentary in-between when he ran out of arrows and shouldered Storm Bow, accompanying him as he recovered them. She did not help--it was hard to tell if she was being thoughtful or thoughtless, but either way Hanzo was thankful. If one simply wrenched the arrows out of the wall, there was a risk of warping them. There were plenty more arrows in every storage area in the homestead, of course, but it did not pay to be wasteful.

 

The time did not pass as quickly as it would have were he alone, but it did pass quickly enough that he was surprised by the twin chimes from his and Agent D.Va’s comms. He was only halfway through the latest round, but he immediately hooked Storm Bow over his shoulder and went to collect his arrows, leaving Agent D.Va to confirm the call to breakfast. He ignored the creeping dread that began to course through him--he would likely be escorting Agent D.Va and Genji soon.

 

They walked back to the eastern house together, with Agent D.Va slightly ahead. Hanzo rolled his shoulders back to relieve the lingering burn in his back muscles--it was a familiar and oddly bolstering feeling, fortifying him against what was coming. It likely would not be enough, but he would take all he could get.

 

Agent D.Va looked over her shoulder when she got to the door, shooting him a sardonic look as she knocked loudly on the door. “May I go in?” she asked as she kept pounding, the noise echoing off the walls of every building surrounding them.

 

“Of course, Agent D.Va,” he said, unimpressed. She laughed a little as she opened the door and went in. He took a deep breath and let it out in a silent sigh before he followed.

 

“Hey there,” said the cowboy, already seated at the table. Hanzo returned the greeting distractedly as he waited for Agent D.Va to finish cleaning her shoes--he was keeping an eye on the hallway so that Genji would not surprise him again.

 

“How’re you feelin’, Agent Shimada?” asked the cowboy loudly and with obvious concern in his voice. “You were pretty tired earlier.”

 

“I am well, Agent McCree,” muttered Hanzo, still distracted.

 

“Yeah?” The cowboy did not sound convinced.

 

“Yes.” Hanzo finally faced the cowboy, and to his surprise, he saw that Agent D.Va had already moved to the table. Frowning, he sat on the stool and quickly scrubbed the dirt off his own soles--he was not being as observant as usual. Was it the distraction of watching for Genji, the fatigue from the night before, or both? He stood while simultaneously withdrawing two more packets of coffee from his pocket. One of those problems he could solve.

 

He knelt at the table before two MREs--at least he was lucid enough to note they were already set out--and tore them open, fishing out the water bottles before anything else. He opened one of the packets, and Agent D.Va sucked in a breath as the pleasant smell wafted out. “Coffee?” she asked, eyes alight. “There’s been coffee this whole time? Where?”

 

Hanzo drank a few gulps of water to make room for the powder before he answered, pouring it in as he spoke. “My apologies, Agent D.Va,” he said, finding he had to concentrate a little harder on the simple task than usual. “There is a very limited amount, so I am used to rationing it.”

 

“No relief for caffeine headaches today, then,” said the cowboy with a smile, and then, over Agent D.Va’s groans, “Don’ worry none--once Agent Shimada’s inventoried the food, we’ll know exactly how many grams per day we can divvy out.”

 

Agent D.Va frowned. “So how bad was your night if you’re drinking a pack-- _two_ packets of precious, precious coffee?”

 

Hanzo, wishing he had thought to do this somewhere private, was already pouring the second packet into the same bottle, producing a dark brown-black mix. “I did not sleep well last night,” he admitted at last, since that much was obvious. Hoping to derail the topic, he looked at her and asked, “Would you like to do the inspection at a specific time?”

 

“Me and Genji were thinking right after the shift change,” said Agent D.Va, still staring rather longingly at the water bottle, even as Hanzo began to more or less chug its contents. “Zen and Mei say they should be fine holding down the fort.”

 

“Very well,” said Hanzo as soon as he drained the water bottle. He immediately refilled it halfway from the jug, aiming to get at the thin layer of sludge that had not dissolved the first time.

 

After downing the last of the coffee, Hanzo attacked his meal with dogged determination, aiming to finish as quickly as possible. Genji was not the only reason--he would not obligate his brother or Agent D.Va to endure his body odor for however long the inspection lasted.

 

Assuming Genji could smell.

 

He nearly choked at the thought--Winston had mentioned in India that Genji was “hermetically sealed”--surely that meant that while he had his mask on, he was completely cut off from his environment, unable to enjoy something as simple as a breath of fresh air--

 

It was a wonder he wore it at all.

 

But no, it was little wonder that he did, from the look of the necrotic, scarred, dead--

 

“Agent Shimada?”

 

Hanzo blinked. He was staring at a half-eaten breadroll crowned with tuna fish.

 

He shook himself and looked up at the cowboy. “My apologies, co--Agent McCree. Did you say something?”

 

The cowboy’s eyes were narrowed. “I said, when did _you_ want t’go with me and ‘Reeha tomorrow? Morning before our shift or afternoon afterward?”

 

“Ah--the afternoon,” said Hanzo, hurriedly thinking through his likely schedule. “Tomorrow afternoon, perhaps?”

 

The cowboy nodded slowly. “Sounds good, I’ll see what ‘Reeha thinks.” He peered at Hanzo, almost scrutinizing him, but Hanzo steadfastly ignored it, concentrating once more on eating as quickly as possible.

 

He succeeded in finishing before there was any indication of Genji’s approach, to his relief. He gathered the remains of the MREs and stood. “After I have bathed, I will be available to go at any time, Agent D.Va.”

 

She waved one hand while toying with one of the coffee packets with the other--she had snagged it at some point without his notice, a fact he frowned at. “For sure. Go wash, mountain man.”

 

As he went down the hallway, he could hear her take a long sniff. “I will give you my brand new handheld right now if you tell me where he’s hiding this shit,” she told the cowboy just before Hanzo closed the basement door.

 

Rolling his eyes, Hanzo tugged off his gi and dropped it together with Storm Bow and his quiver at the foot of the stairs as he headed for the water pump, eager both to scrub away the sticky, dirty feeling from his skin and to get through the ordeal of the icy water as soon as possible.

 

It was a testament to his fatigue that he did not realize he had not brought clean clothes with him until he was finishing up, suddenly cursing under his breath as he dried his hands after washing away the excess coconut oil for his hair and reached for the spot where he usually kept his next change of clothes.

 

But his current forgetfulness was luckily offset by previous foresight--or paranoia--as he took out a thick woolen sweater and pants out of a crate in the corner. It had been a long time since they had seen use, long enough that his body shape had changed. The soft mottled green wool stretched over his chest and biceps, and he struggled somewhat to get the pants on--they pinched around his waist once on. He pursed his lips--this was unsatisfactory, but it was enough to go in search for better.

 

He headed back upstairs--and ran straight into Genji.

 

“Good morning, brother.”

 

“Good morning,” he replied automatically, fighting not to physically reel back.

 

Genji seemed to have lounging in the hall, straightening as though he had been waiting for Hanzo to appear. His running lights and visor were turned off, the flattened V of his visor dark with only a bare trace of green. Hanzo swallowed as he focused just above it.

 

There was a few beats of silence before Genji cleared his throat through the modulation of his mask. “D.Va says you’d be ready to go after you cleaned up.”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo after a moment of fevered deliberation--if Genji was ready now, then his clothes were adequate.

 

“Okay,” said Genji, but he sounded distracted. “Okay, uh--actually, I need to speak to Mei about something. Let’s stop by the other house and then we can head out.”

 

“Very well.”

 

Agent D.Va was waiting in the sitting room, sitting crosslegged as she focused on her handheld device--if the cowboy had been snooping around in the supply crates in his bedroom, then he had apparently not given up the location of the coffee. “Ready to go?” she asked as she stuffed the handheld back in the pocket of her puffy coat. “Finally! Let’s go see some cats.”

 

“For sure!” said Genji cheerfully. “Right after I talk with Mei.”

 

“What?” she asked, frowning. “She was just here.”

 

“Yep, and I was trying to remember what I needed to ask her,” replied Genji with a trace of impatience. “It won’t take long. C’mon.” He led the way outside, with Agent D.Va following just behind and Hanzo taking up the rear, trying not to too obviously use her as a buffer.

 

The sun had risen into a sky covered in ragged, puffy white clouds. An edge of its limb peeked through a gap and glinted off Genji’s silvery carapace, immediately carving out an orange-red afterimage in Hanzo’s sight before he could look away. Blinking rapidly in a vain attempt to clear his vision, he followed as Genji made a beeline for the western house, pausing only when he reached the door and waiting for them to catch up. He knocked as they approached, a deliberate set of taps that might have spelled out something if Hanzo were paying more attention.

 

“Hey,” said Agent Pharah as she opened the door. “What’s up?”

 

“Is Mei in here?” asked Genji.

 

“Yeah, c’mon in, I’ll get her.”

 

Hanzo caught a quick, almost imperceptible movement of Genji’s head--glancing at him? “I don’t want to drag in more dirt. Can you ask her to come out here?”

 

“Alright, dirt magnet, just a sec.” The door clicked closed, and Genji shifted his weight to one leg as he waited.

 

“What are you going to ask her?” asked Agent D.Va as she shuffled her feet and adjusted her earmuffs.

 

“Just something about her cryoblaster,” he answered vaguely.

 

Hanzo narrowed his eyes slightly. He recognized that tone--Genji was improvising.

 

But what of it? he asked himself angrily, turning slightly away and adjusting the hem of his sweater, tugging at the fabric to release a bit caught under his chest. It was no business of his to analyze his brother’s actions or dissect his intentions. It had been, once--and look what the consequences had been.

 

“Hi!” said Agent Mei as she opened the door. She stepped out and closed it behind her, her thick dark brown hair down and framing her round face and wearing only a tanktop and thin pyjama pants despite the cold. She showed no discomfort whatsoever as she smiled up at Genji. “What’s going on?”

 

“Nothing much, we’re about to head out,” said Genji, tilting his head. “I meant to ask you earlier--what’re the effects of your cryoblaster on prosthetics? When you said it works on both humans and Omnics, I assumed that included me, but now I’m not so sure.”

 

“Oh--” said Agent Mei slowly. “Well, it would have the same effects on powered prosthetics as on Omnics, by freezing up the batteries and joints. I’m not sure about unpowered prosthetics, but then again, I would be aiming for the organic bits anyway.”

 

“Oh, okay,” said Genji pleasantly. “I probably could’ve guessed that, huh? Ha!” He rubbed the side of his helmet in an apologetic manner. “Anyway! I guess we’ll head on out. Hanzo--” he said with a sudden deliberate set to his voice as he turned toward him, “--is taking us to see the cats.”

 

“Oh yeah, that’s really exciting!” said Mei with a bright grin as she turned as well. “Good morning, Agent Shimada! You look well this morning!”

 

Hanzo carefully schooled his expression as he bobbed his head slightly. “Thank you, Agent Mei. You do as well.”

 

“Yeah,” she laughed, pressing a finger to the bridge of her glasses. “I might actually be awake because of a good night’s sleep rather than my mother’s tea!”

 

“You’ve got tea?!” asked Agent D.Va despairingly. “Does everyone have caffeine but me?”

 

“Oh!” exclaimed Agent Mei, her grin disappearing, “I’m sorry! I knew the time change would be awful, so I brewed enough for the first few days before we left. I got my last thermos, though--here, let me go grab it for you!”

 

“Yes! Yes, please, you literal caffeine angel,” Agent D.Va simpered, reaching out to grab Agent Mei’s shoulders in a quick hug.

 

Agent Mei giggled and blushed as she rushed back inside with a brief “Just give me a second!” She almost instantly reappeared with a dark blue thermos with a cup lid. “Here you go! It’s cold, though!”

 

“It could be frozen and I wouldn’t care, so long as it’s caffeine,” said Agent D.Va solemnly, accepting the thermos with both hands and bowing at the waist. _“Xièxiè nín.”_

 

Agent Mei giggled again at Agent D.Va’s exaggerated formality. “You’re welcome. Go and have fun!” she said, making shooing motions with her hands.

 

“Will do!” said Genji cheerfully, and he turned and began walking southwards, followed by Agent D.Va as she unscrewed the thermos lid and more or less chugged the contents. Hanzo nodded at Agent Mei as she smiled, but it faltered after a moment.

 

“Do--do you want me to see if I can come with you?” she asked in a low voice.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips slightly, chagrined at how obvious it was to everyone on the homestead that this little trio of agents might not be the most complementary. But he shook his head--having three agents off on their own meant the homestead’s defenses were weakened. It would not do to weaken them further by carrying off yet another agent.

 

He doubted her presence would do much to offset Genji’s, anyway.

 

“No, thank you Agent Mei. You will be needed here if anyone is watching for a hole in the defenses.”

 

She sighed. “Yeah, that’s true. Be careful out there, okay?”

 

He nodded in acknowledgement and walked off, hurrying to catch up--but not _too_ quickly.

 

The trip turned out to be something of a disappointment--for Agent D.Va and Genji, at least.

 

After about ten minutes, they reached the row of apple trees shielding the livestock barn that was the colony’s main stronghold. Unfortunately for Agent D.Va’s hopes, however, they approached from upwind, and the cats reacted to the utterly unfamiliar scents by completely scattering by the time they arrived--even Hanzo’s welcoming committee was not in evidence in any of the many doorways of the barn or atop or around the ruined, decaying farm equipment and sheds scattered about. The colony was silent but for the breeze whistling through the bare branches of the surrounding trees.

 

They lingered in the colony’s immediate vicinity for almost an hour, mostly at Agent D.Va’s insistence but also on Hanzo’s murmured advice. The only way into a feral cat’s good graces was dedicating enough time and patience into demonstrating the complete lack of a threat. There was likely not enough time to overpower their distrust, but Agent D.Va’s fervid hope was that if Hanzo was there it would help accelerate the process, and since Genji seemed willing enough to indulge her, Hanzo must be, too.

 

Genji’s intentions seemed somewhat different, however.

 

“How many cats do you think live here? How long do they live? How far do they range? Do they work together? What do they do to survive the winter? How do they deal with the wildlife? Have you ever invited them into the homestead?” were just some of the questions that Genji kept spouting in a near-constant stream, and Hanzo was obliged to nearly talk himself hoarse answering them as they drifted around the colony.

 

If nothing else, it was an impromptu inspection of the colony’s barn to see how it had weathered the typhoons, and it appeared to have done well. Hanzo could not help getting distracted by the thought that if there anything that could be done to bolster its structural integrity, this was the last opportunity, but he tried to focus on Genji’s interrogation as much as possible, though it became more difficult as it wore on and wore down his energy and tolerance--his answers were acceptably long at first, but they became shorter and shorter and were soon bordering on the one-word answers that neither Genji nor Agent D.Va tolerated well.

 

They ended the inspection with a brief look inside-- _very_ brief. Agent D.Va held her gloved hands over her nose but still gagged when the odor hit her. “Ugh,” she moaned, but she took a few steps into an wide gangway the barn’s livestock had once used and looked around. “This can’t be healthy for them.”

 

“They bury most of their waste elsewhere,” said Hanzo as he stopped at her side. His hands remained at his sides, but he was not immune to the smell--he made no effort to keep his nose from wrinkling. “But not all. They will probably move to another site once the conditions here are unbearable.”

 

“They’ll probably take over _your_ barn after we leave,” said Agent D.Va thoughtfully, her voice muffled and nasal through her hands. “We should leave a door open for them.”

 

Hanzo clenched his jaw, but he tore it apart before his teeth could grind too much. “Perhaps,” he allowed. His barn was far less sturdy, however--it would not last anywhere near as long with its interior exposed to the elements as this one had.

 

But there was no permanent solution, or even a good one. The colony would have only luck to rely on once even his piecemeal aid was gone.

 

Genji hummed while stroking his chin, his metal fingers clicking against his metal jaw. Hanzo subtly turned away from the noise. “Master Zenyatta has often worked with animals,” he said. “He was going to come down here anyway, but when he does he should try to see what he can do for them. We can help give them the best chance we can before we go.”

 

“Oooo, that’s a good idea!” said Agent D.Va with great enthusiasm, even lowering her hands from her face to smile--for an instant, before she coughed and clapped them over her nose again and scurried out.

 

Hanzo turned to follow her, but Genji said in a soft voice, “He would be good for you, too, you know.”

 

Hanzo fought not to freeze. He turned back to Genji and said in neutral voice, “His efforts are better spent on cats.”

 

“Hanzo,” said Genji with an edge to his voice.

 

“There’s one!” Agent D.Va yelled from outside. “And it’s not running away! Guys! This is our chance!”

 

Hanzo twisted around and strode towards her voice, thankful, for once, for her antics.

 

She had spotted Rin, who was less well-hidden than her peers by virtue of her ginger fur. Still, she was fairly inaccessible, having scaled an apple tree and settled on one of its thick boughs about halfway up. Agent D.Va was directly underneath her and she turned around and waved with calculated nonchalance, possibly to counteract her burst of exuberance. “There she is,” she said calmly, though her face was somewhat flushed with excitement.

 

Hanzo nodded. “There she is,” he repeated. A loud mewling came from above when Rin spotted Hanzo, and he looked up to see her casually stretching her legs before she settled back down, yellow eyes trained on Hanzo.

 

“She knows you,” said Genji lightly as he joined them.

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo, still recovering from the near-miss.

 

There was little he could stomach less than the thought of speaking to the Omnic monk under his brother’s orders. The idea was so repulsive that he could almost feel bile rising in the back of his throat.

 

He swallowed it back as best he could, but the scenario crowded out all else in his thoughts, with scenes rushing past his mind’s eye of enduring hours of the Omnic monk’s company, fighting tooth and nail against the insinuations and half-truths and rationalizations that he must have used to wear down Genji’s righteous anger into--into _acceptance_ and _forgiveness_ and whatever other foolish, shortsighted things had been crammed into his head to distract him from what was due and proper.

 

“--zo? Hanzo?”

 

Hanzo blinked and started, whipping around to face his brother--and automatically flinching back from the robotic hand about to touch his shoulder.

 

It was a mistake.

 

He knew it immediately. There were no eyes to watch, no face to read, but it was obvious from the start to Genji’s fingers and the way he froze as though afraid to spook him--which he just had, so he had good reason to.

 

Time seem to stand still for a long, long split-second before Genji dropped his hand to his side and took a step back.

 

“Brother?” he asked quietly, his voice carefully controlled. “Are you alright?”

 

Hanzo carefully schooled his face to hide the sudden burst of--not fear, exactly, but something like--that had briefly overwhelmed him. “Yes, my apologies,” he said, and he was pleased that _his_ control was less obvious than Genji’s. “Did you say something?”

 

The dead black green visor seemed to study his face. “You--you spaced out for a few seconds,” he said, voice still controlled, but one of his arms twitched slightly as if he wanted to reach out again. Hanzo held himself firmly in place, determined not to move away again if Genji _did_ reach out, but he did not--his arms only stiffened, as though Genji, too, was trying not to move too much.

 

“You need more coffee--or less?” Agent D.Va asked sardonically. She was still standing underneath the tree--both she and Rin were staring at Hanzo, Agent D.Va with an uplifted brow and Rin with wide, unblinking eyes.

 

Hanzo debated for a bare moment which would be less damaging to admit to, and decided his flinch was best attributed to caffeine-induced jitters--though he doubted there was any salvaging the situation. “Less, I believe,” he said in a suitably regretful tone. “I obviously overdid it. I had three packets even before I went out to train.”

 

“Geez! I thought I was a caffeine junkie!” exclaimed Agent D.Va, rolling her eyes as she turned away and craned her head to peer up at Rin. “Did you get _any_ sleep last night? I only need that much when I’ve been streaming all night long.”

 

Hanzo felt his insides go cold.

 

“Did you not sleep last night, brother?” Genji asked, the edge creeping back into his voice.

 

He swallowed thickly. “I--” he muttered, “--I slept better than I implied this morning at breakfast.”

 

“I see.”

 

The two words were almost impossibly heavy.

 

Even Agent D.Va seemed to feel the weight of them. She shot a quick glance over her shoulder, but turned away just as quickly and stared rather singlemindedly up at Rin, who settled more comfortably on her branch as she watched over the whole debacle.

 

Silence went on for several interminable minutes. Hanzo fought the urge to fidget or to move at all really--he just looked up and past Rin into the cloudy sky beyond her and waited for either Agent D.Va or Genji to break the stalemate and allow them out of this hell.

 

Agent D.Va did so at last. “Alright, well, I guess she’s got our scent and our faces memorized,” she announced to no one in particular. “Anything else you guys want to do before we head back?” She waited barely two seconds. “Alright, let’s get going, then.”

 

And she began marching in the direction of the homestead, leaving Genji and Hanzo to awkwardly sort themselves out as they followed. Genji did not want to seem to proceed or trail Hanzo, and he himself did not know which he preferred, either--so they settled on walking side-by-side.

 

None of them exchanged a single word until they were back on the homestead.

 

“Ugh, finally,” muttered Agent D.Va under her breath when they passed between the two houses. “I’m gonna grab some lunch with Pharah and McCree!” she said in a louder voice, not breaking stride as she made straight for the western house’s entrance. “See ya!”

 

Hanzo watched her go with more than a little jealousy that she could drop the whole situation so easily. He, meanwhile, was trying to figure out how best to take his leave without further insulting Genji or embarrassing himself.

 

Genji provided an out, knowingly or no. “I believe I will go and eat as well,” he murmured. “Are you hungry?”

 

“No,” said Hanzo, entirely truthfully. “I will go and continue the inventory.”

 

“Okay,” said Genji, and Hanzo could not help but purse his lips at the obvious dejection in his brother’s voice, and if he quickened his step to escape it all the faster, he could only hope it was not too obvious.

 

Fleeing into the darkened shelter of the eastern garage was an immense relief.

 

And there he really did become somewhat jittery, a kind of restless energy thrumming through his arms and fingers as soon as he no longer had to control their movements. He took out his comm to call Athena, but unfortunately that drew his attention to a tremor in his hands. He stared at the trembling for a few seconds before he dropped the comm on one of the worktables and stalked around the piles of wood, looking for something to do to work off what he recognized as adrenaline. His meticulous organization worked against him for once, so all that he could do was grab the broom and sweep off every surface within reach of the extendable handle once more. This late in the year there were only a bare three or four spiders who had attempted to rebuild what Hanzo had destroyed the day before, so it was an entirely fruitless exercise in anything other than energy expenditure.

 

But it did help to take the edge off, enough so that after he finished and swept a laughably tiny pile of dust out the door and returned to his comm, the jittery feeling had faded to a mostly feeling somewhat hamfisted instead, which was preferable.

 

He returned Athena’s greeting with a carefully neutral response. He almost could not disguise his gratitude when she rather pointedly launched directly into continuing the inventory with minimal conversation, and relief swelled in his chest when her exacting methodology required enough concentration to keep any other thoughts at bay--particularly any that concerned what might happen tonight when Genji came off-duty.

 

He could better ignore how they hovered ominously in the back of his mind if he was working.

 

There was only a third or so of the eastern garage’s contents left to inventory, so it did not take as long as Hanzo would have liked to work through it, but Athena surprised him by insisting on skimming over everything at the end before they finished up, which he was only too happy to do before they moved on to the much smaller eastern garage, which contained only some maintenance parts for Hanzo’s two fixed-wing drones and hovercycle. The hovercycle itself was still pressed up against the wall, with Overwatch’s three hovercycles squeezed together in a row in the middle of the floor.

 

Despite how crowded they made the small space, it took a regrettably short amount of time before everything was catalogued. The next logical step was the western house with all its food and clothing stores--but Genji and the Omnic monk--

 

“The gym is currently unoccupied, Agent Shimada,” said Athena crisply. “It may be advantageous to begin there while no one is using the equipment.”

 

Hanzo surprised himself by wondering if there was anything an AI might need in the homestead--if there was, she had long since earned it, but the suggestion stirred his gratitude like no other action of hers had.

 

It did not take long to go through the contents of the gym, of course--but it was long enough. By the time he had entered in the last of buckets, it was well after 1600. Genji was safely occupied until midnight.

 

And diverting to the gym proved fortuitous for another reason: he was reminded of the climbing hold that had been destroyed during Agent Pharah and the cowboy’s ill-advised competition the night before.

 

There was a task to perform after dinner that might drag on until after midnight.

 

Nodding slightly and with spirits cautious but recovering, Hanzo stepped out of the gym--

 

“Ah, Shimada-san,” said the Omnic monk. “I was just looking for you.”

 

Hanzo had to trap a curse behind his teeth, but he managed to swallow it. “Good afternoon, Agent Zenyatta,” he said instead, forcing his face into a non-expression. “How may I help you?”

 

“Genji tells me that we are disturbing your sleep,” the Omnic monk said without preamble, clasping his hands behind his back as he spoke. “I already knew, of course, given the little incident the night before last, but I’m told that you didn’t sleep at all last night.”

 

Hanzo tore his teeth apart to say, “That was an exaggeration of Agent D.Va’s. I am not certain how much I slept last night, but it was insufficient, not inexistent.”

 

The Omnic monk hummed a little and tilted his head. “I see,” he said in a noncommittal tone that clawed at Hanzo’s patience. “Well, in any case, Genji and I spoke and agreed that if you would sleep better in a private bedroom, we are more than willing to move elsewhere. Neither of us are sure where we might--”

 

“That is unnecessary, Agent Zenyatta,” Hanzo interrupted, driven by a wave of agitation surging through him. He balked at his own rudeness for a moment before he recovered enough to say, “Excuse me.”

 

The Omnic monk tutted. “Shimada-san, I think in any other situation you would be the first to say that driving yourself to exhaustion benefits no one.”

 

Hanzo felt his lips begin to curl out of frustration, so he spoke quickly to head them in some other direction. “Of course. However, it would be simpler if _I_ moved sleeping spaces instead. I have slept in the--”

 

“Forgive me,” the Omnic monk cut in with a small laugh, “Now I have to interrupt before you go too far. I’m afraid we might be in a stalemate--Genji was afraid you would offer to go elsewhere. He told me to veto the idea by any means necessary. If anyone moves, it will be us.”

 

Hanzo grit his teeth. If the situation was likely to end in such a stalemate, why make an offer at all? If Genji thought Hanzo could be swayed on this, his brother greatly misunderstood him.

 

But what to say?

 

“I--” he ground out, pausing to weed out the frustration that laced the word. “I doubt my sleeplessness would be solved with a private space, whether it be a bedroom or elsewhere on the homestead. This--situation--as a whole has disturbed my equilibrium. I suspect my sleep would be disrupted no matter the accomodation. Thus there is little reason to force anyone to move.”

 

It was part of the truth, more than Hanzo was comfortable telling the Omnic monk, but hopefully enough to satisfy him--depending on just how much Genji had told him, of course. But the Omnic monk had been ignorant of the exact details of Hanzo’s “recruitment”, so there was reason to hope that Genji did not freely share every last thing on his mind with his master.

 

The Omnic monk stood perfectly still for a few moments, his stiffly placid face almost boring into Hanzo’s determinedly blank mask. At last, he shrugged his shoulders a little. “Very well, we’ll leave everything as is for now. If there’s anything we can do to make you more comfortable, however, I hope you won’t struggle too much to mention it.”

 

Hanzo pressed his lips firmly together.

 

The Omnic monk turned halfway. “Were you heading back to the house?” he asked. “I have a few questions about the cats, if you would indulge me.”

 

Hanzo nodded tiredly, hardly thrown by the sudden change of subject, and walked beside the Omnic monk back across the grass-riddled street to the houses. His questions had mainly to do with the general temperament of the colony, how relaxed or agitated the cats seemed to be, if they ever acted strangely, how adverse they were to being approached. Hanzo answered mechanically, not seeing how they might help the Omnic monk, but his success or failure with the colony was none of his concern.

 

To his relief, they parted ways at the door to the western house. “Thank you, Shimada-san--I’ll go inform Genji of the results of our conference,” the Omnic monk said, bowing his head slightly before he stopped suddenly, the motion jarring from its artificial abruptness. “Ah, and here is Ani’s orb,” he said, producing it from the pouch on his belt, also made of camo material. “Thank you for entrusting it to me.”

 

“Of course,” said Hanzo, trying not to hesitate as he accepted it--the metal was warm against his fingers, the heat soaking into them with a pleasant buzzing sensation that he tried to ignore.

 

The Omnic monk looked at the orb for a moment before switching to Hanzo’s face. “I do not wish to pressure you,” he said slowly, “but as it was intended as a gift--you mentioned the disturbance to your equilibrium. This orb is intended specifically to help correct just such an imbalance. I’m sure you’d find the results to be--not transformative, but a great comfort, especially if you were to use it as you were resting.” He raised a hand to forestall Hanzo’s automatic reply. “I know that you do not wish to, but--if you have a moment of great need, you should know what tools you have at your disposal, even if you do not presently wish to use them.

 

“But in any case, I’ll go speak with Genji about the stalemate. Thank you again, Shimada-san.” And he strode off, hands still clasped behind his back, leaving Hanzo to glower after him as soon as he had turned away.

 

For too long. Hanzo caught himself after a few seconds and, now growling low in his throat at himself, tapped on the eastern house’s door and let himself in without waiting for a response. There was no one to greet him for once, but who knew how long that would last? He dropped down on the stool and scrubbed his feet clean before he nearly tossed the orb back into his cello case, only stopping himself and packing it away with more care when he recognized the mini-tantrum for what it was.

 

He focused his energy into something constructive, instead, namely eating dinner as quickly as possible so that he could retire to the workshop as quickly as possible. He moved to pluck three more MREs from the cupboard--but he blinked in surprise to see there was only one last box wrapped in black plastic. He grabbed it and slowly moved to the next cupboard over and opened it to reveal a large cardboard box. He gingerly set it onto the counter and opened it to reveal stacks of smaller cardboard boxes wrapped in clear plastic. He took one out and glanced at the letters stamped into the lid: RATION DE COMBAT INDIVIDUELLE RECHAUFFABLE, but unlike the Spanish MREs, these included a contents list in both French and English underneath, and even a nutrition label that affirmed that the contents had 13,000 kJ of energy, enough for a full day--for an average person.

 

Hanzo put the _ración_ back in favor of a single _ration--_ it seemed the French packed more calories into a single box than the Spanish.

 

And Hanzo immediately saw how they accomplished it when he knelt at the table, tore off the clear plastic, and opened the lid: nearly half the contents were sweet wafers, some vanilla, others chocolate, along with a tin of cheese with crackers, an chocolate bar, and an energy bar on top of it all. The two tins with more substantial food, pork with vegetables and beef with carrots, were almost an afterthought.

 

Hanzo stared at the wafers and chocolate bar for a long moment--Agent Soldier: 76 had been entirely correct to say that the French MREs were better, back in Niigata. He could understand why they had disappeared so quickly. He wondered, briefly, if Agent D.Va knew what they contained--it might serve as an indication that she had more self-control then he suspected if she did.

 

He turned to the pork and beef tins first, however--protein, vitamins, and minerals were the priority at the moment.

 

At the very least, the Spanish got their main courses right--the _cocido madrileño_ was the equal of the French _rillettes pur porc._

 

After finishing off the stews, Hanzo pocketed some of the vanilla wafers and stowed the rest of MRE’s contents in his cello case. He struggled a bit to not open up the tin of cheese--he was not entirely sure how accurate the French stereotype of their obsession with cheese was, but it would be interesting to see what the French military deemed acceptable.

 

But the most important part of the meal was that its rich taste had made it easy to eat quickly, before Hanzo was disturbed by anyone.

 

He fled to the western garage through the wan light of early evening--the clouds had cleared the western sky, allowing the sun to offer an unimpeded farewell as it prepared to sink below the horizon. Hanzo met no one as he darted to the garage’s side door and slipped inside, closing it securely and flipping on the overhead lights to deny the invitation of an open door to anyone.

 

But, of course, it could not impede anyone who could not see the door at all.

 

His comm began to chime, and Hanzo pursed his lips before he pulled it out. To his surprise--but a steadily diminishing amount--it was Agent Lúcio. Hanzo sighed, pulled out the earpiece and inserted it, and answered the call. “Good evening, Agent Lúcio.”

 

“Goooood morning!” crowed Agent Lúcio, laughing. “How’s it going, dude?”

 

“Very well, thank you. And yourself?”

 

“Eh, could be better--it’s pretty boring without most of the gang,” replied Agent Lúcio with a groan as if he were stretching. Hanzo tried not to let the image of it run away with his mind’s eye. “There’s only so much engineering and theoretical physics I can listen to, and only so much music theory and hockey statistics that Winston can stomach, ha! Thank God for Reinhardt! The man’s got a billion stories to tell--I don’t know if he’s stopped talking _once_ since everyone left, now that he doesn’t have any competition!”

 

Hanzo listened with half an ear as he looked over a pile of roughly hewn wooden blocks, picking up one, then another to feel the weight and grain. “I see,” he murmured.

 

“Yep!” said Agent Lúcio cheerfully. “Anyway, it’s about dinnertime, right? I’m dying to talk to everyone all at once!”

 

“Ah,” said Hanzo, trying to convey a tone of regret. “I have a task to complete that will take several hours, so I ate dinner early. If you wish to speak with more people, I suggest calling Agent McCree--he will likely be eating soon.”

 

“Oh! Really?” asked Agent Lúcio, and Hanzo’s eyes narrowed. There was a certain tone to Agent Lúcio’s voice--almost as though he was trying to sound surprised when he was not surprised at all. “Well, then, I’ll keep you company! What’re you up to?”

 

Hanzo was silent for a moment or two, just bordering on being rude, before he answered. “I am going to make a replacement for a piece of equipment that was broken recently.”

 

“Aw, geez, what’re those delinquents doing over there?” asked Agent Lúcio jokingly. “Are they already tearing down everything?”

 

“No,” said Hanzo as he selected a block at last and set it on a worktable. “Agents Pharah and McCree incidentally broke a climbing hold as they were using the gym, that is all. It is no wonder, since they are completely improvised.”

 

“Oh yeah, Fareeha was telling me about that earlier! Dude, you _need_ to come over here, it sounds like you could upgrade this whole Watchpoint with nothing but your own two hands and a trip to Telhanorte!”

 

Hanzo shook his head slightly. Given what he had seen of Watchpoint: Niigata, he doubted that. “I’m sure that Agent Torbjörn and Winston are better qualified.”

 

“Sure, if you need some sort of hyperturret with its own regenerative shields,” said Agent Lúcio with more than a little sarcasm. “But when the bedframe cracks in two and folds you in half in the middle of the night? ‘Sorry, agent, no spares, we’ll have to order in a new one to the drop point and organize a small extraction mission to go pick it up.’ McCree was going to fix it with a couple of poles he found somewhere, but then this whole thing happened. At least there are plenty of spare beds right now!” he finished, good humor already restored.

 

Hanzo looked over his shoulder at a collection of rough boards leaning against the wall. They were short and meant to patch up holes in roofs from the inside, but it would be child’s play to repurpose them for--

 

Well. They were inventoried. If Overwatch had need of them, Athena or the cowboy would requisition them.

 

But thinking of constructing a bedframe led him to think of the _charpai_ bed in India, and that reminded him of the Omnic monk’s offhand remark about telling the inhabitants of the Kurnool District about windmills--and as Hanzo looked at the wooden block before him, a use occurred to him for the small pieces of wood he was about to produce as he cut it down to size.

 

He looked around at the array of tools on the walls around him. It would be a--a waste of time, surely, but that was precisely what he needed if he was going to avoid creating an untenable situation with Genji. He had come close already, and what he needed was solitude in order to recharge and rebalance himself so that he would not commit the same errors again.

 

The comm chimed, and Hanzo glanced at it. “Agents McCree, Mei, and Pharah are about to eat, Agent Lúcio,” he said as he typed a short message in response. “If you call any of them now, you can speak to them during the meal.”

 

“Nah, I’m good,” said Agent Lúcio, somewhat surprising Hanzo but also somewhat confirming a murky suspicion in his gut. “I’m already talking to you. So, uh--hey, you wanna put this on video so I can watch what you’re doing? You don’t have to if you don’t want to, though--”

 

Hanzo suppressed a sigh. “A moment, Agent Lúcio.” He set another wood block on the work table and set the comm against it before he started the video feed. Agent Lúcio waved enthusiastically when he appeared on the screen. Hanzo gave a short wave in response before he adjusted the comm so that it could see the worktable unimpeded. He made sure that the field of vision did not include anything about his own chest--if Agent Lúcio continued to talk, it would be easier to respond if he did not have to worry about his expressions.

 

But rather surprisingly, Agent Lúcio turned out to be a fairly respectful audience, only occasionally commenting or asking a question as Hanzo set the block into a clamp and sawed off several long, thick strips of woods until he was left with a rectangular block about the size of two or three milk cartons. He studied it for a few seconds before he selected a chisel and began parting off more. He was not being particularly careful with the design--he rather doubted anyone would even use it more then once or twice before it was abandoned--but it was, at the very least, important that it not break or leave splinters behind on that first or second use. Thus he erred on the side of caution and made it bigger and thicker, with tapering ends somewhat like a rugby ball so that the screw in the middle would be less likely to split, and to make it easier to sand down.

 

Agent Lúcio, much like Agent D.Va that morning, was never quite forgotten, but being on the other side of the planet made his presence considerably easier to bear. Hanzo was rather amazed that he found the whole process so interesting--he very rarely caught him looking elsewhere when he glanced at the screen, and when he was looking elsewhere he seemed to be looking up things about woodcarving, if his questions were anything to judge by.

 

“So--so it’s _whittling_ when it’s done with just a knife, and _woodcarving_ when you use--everything else?”

 

“Whittling also implies more amateur-level skill,” said Hanzo absently--the wood grain in one part of the block was going in an inconvenient direction. “One could argue that I am only whittling, despite my choice of tools.”

 

“You know more than I do at least!” said Agent Lúcio, a smile in his voice.

 

“Yes,” replied Hanzo as he parted off the last of the excess wood. He set aside the chisel in favor of a carving knife to better shape it, but the bulk of the carving was already done. He made quick work of shaving the hold done until it was tolerably smooth, then he swapped out the knife for coarse sandpaper, working his way to finer and finer grains over time until he stood back at last to study his handiwork. The hold had turned out shaped like a lemon cut in half lengthwise, with one long flat side and the other gently curving. It was not the most creative thing, but it would do. He grabbed a hand-driven boring tool and drilled a hole as close to the center of its curved face as he could manage--and he took it as a good sign that the hold did not immediately split in two. More than one had during this last step.

 

“I have finished, Agent Lúcio,” he said quietly.

 

“Looks good, man!” he said, flashing up a bright grin and a thumbs up. “You gonna go put it up?”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo--leaving out that he was not going _immediately._

 

“Alright, dude, I’ll let you go, then--thanks for letting me watch! It was actually kinda fun--I was ready to peace out the moment it got boring, but it’s actually pretty relaxing watching a pair of hands that know what they’re doing!”

 

Hanzo rolled his eyes skyward, trying to resist reading too much into the words.

 

“Talk to you later, man! Don’t work yourself too hard!” The comm screen went black as he ended the call, and Hanzo tipped it forward to fall onto its face.

 

He set aside the new climbing hold and gathered up the strips of wood he had sawed off as a first step, carding through them and selecting the thickest ones. He set one into another clamp that held it fast and flush against the surface of the worktable and went in search of a few small gouges, both V- and U-shaped. When he returned, he studied the strip with far more concentration and trepidation--this would take some time and skill to get right, and he was not sure he had either.

 

But he set to work--this first strip was going to be fairly experimental anyway.

 

This particular clamp could get rotated and fastened down in various orientations, which worked greatly to Hanzo’s advantage as he worked, learning as he went as he so often did in woodcarving. It took two and a half strips, moving down the length of each one and starting a new experiment as soon as the last one failed, before he happened on a technique that seemed to work. None too soon--there were only two strips left, but he had left the thickest ones for last, and thicker wood appeared to work better. The time for experiments was passed--now came the work that counted.

 

Carefully and methodically he gouged and carved and whittled away. Hidden away in the garage and with only LED lights above as illumination, it was difficult to tell how much time was passing, to Hanzo’s immense satisfaction. He really was losing himself in the work, and the tension from the outing to the colony was slowly but surely fading--he had been afraid that Agent Lúcio’s company might prevent that, but the young man had inspired no new tension, which was a relief.

 

It had been a good choice to justify this small thing--hopefully it would put him in a frame of mind that could figure out how to rectify his earlier blunders, or at least keep from magnifying them.

 

When he ran out of room on the last strip, he stood back and looked over the result with a critical eye as he blew away the shavings and ran his fingers over the mid-relief carvings. He based his evaluation on whether he would be embarrassed if someone were to see his work--and, in the end, he rather thought--

 

A knock came from the side door.

 

“Agent Shimada?” called the cowboy--and he opened the door without waiting for a reply.

 

Hanzo quickly stepped in front of the strips, shielding them from view.  “Yes, Agent McCree?”

 

The cowboy flinched. “Oh, Jesus, sorry!” he blurted, standing with the door half-opened with eyes wide. “I didn’--for some reason I didn’ expect you in here, I thought you’d be--aw, hell.” He let go of the door, whipped off his hat, and agitatedly ran his fingers through his hathair. “I’m sorry, Agent Shimada,” he rumbled in a low voice. “I was thinkin’ too hard about somethin’ and forgot myself. Again. Won’ happen again.”

 

“Think nothing of it, Agent McCree,” said Hanzo, taken aback from how seriously the cowboy was taking this but annoyed all the same--the cowboy was making a habit of bursting through doors, which did Hanzo’s nerves no good at all.

 

“I, uh--I was just lookin’ for you t’let you know about tomorrow’s schedule,” the cowboy said hesitantly into an awkward silence that descended for a few seconds. “You weren’ at dinner, so, uh--anyway. Can I come in?”

 

Hanzo set his jaw for a moment before saying, “Of course.” He scooped up the new climbing hold, hoping to center the cowboy’s attention on it, before he met him halfway. The further he was from his other project, the better.

 

The cowboy looked at the hold curiously for a moment before his expression cleared. “Oh! To, uh, replace the one I broke?” he asked with chagrin coloring his voice. “Sorry about that, by the way, I shoulda been more careful. Wasn’ thinkin’--again.”

 

“Think nothing of it,” Hanzo repeated as he brushed a few wood shavings off of the tight wool stretched across his chest. “They were made by a complete amateur, so it is no surprise they would not be up to standard.” A thought occurred to him, making him frown. “I hope you did not injure yourself when it broke?”

 

“Oh, naw, naw,” said the cowboy with a self-conscious laugh. “Didn’ even get a splinter, don’ you worry.”

 

Hanzo nodded in reply, and waited for the cowboy to get to the point.

 

“Anyway,” he said, “I was gonna tell you at dinner that our well of information has dried up. Ms. Vaswani says she’s told us everything she can, which was mainly suspicions, some vague records, et cetera. It’s a good start for Winston and Athena, but it’d be worth teasin’ out as much more as we can--so it’s time for us t’reward her good behavior.”

 

Hanzo frowned. “In what way?”

 

“A nice, long walk,” replied the cowboy with a small smile. “She’s got the restraints on, Athena and Torbjörn got a pretty tight perimeter around us, and nobody’s jetlagged. We can observe the Geneva Convention, let our prisoner stretch her legs, and see if that encourages her t’give us anything more.”

 

Hanzo hardly let up on his frown. “What is being done to prepare?”

 

“We’ll be doing it tomorrow morning when everyone’s awake,” said the cowboy, shifting his weight to one leg and putting his hands on his hips--but in a relaxed, non-confrontational way that Hanzo had only seen in movies. “Me and ‘Reeha will go with her, and I’d like you t’come, too, since you know the lay of the land better than anyone. The three of us together should be a good deterrent at best and a good defense at worst. Everyone else’ll be monitoring us and the perimeter--Genji and Zen will investigate anything the least bit suspicious while Mei and Song guard the homestead in case Ms. Vaswani managed t’drop anything for Vishkar t’retrieve.”

 

Hanzo nodded slowly. “Alright,” he said cautiously. “Have you decided on where to go?”

 

The cowboy took his comm out of his pocket and pulled up a satellite view of the depression, tracing the road that passed the homestead and curved up towards its northern edge with his finger. “We’ll take a path that takes us closer t’the Orca so that Tracer and Torbjörn will be close by if we need backup or evacuation. All goin’ well, we can just cut back over the fields or come back the way we came when she gets cold or tired. She says she’d like as long as we can give her, and I see no reason not t’give it to her unless something fishy happens.” He looked up at Hanzo. “Sound good?”

 

It did not. But this was Hanzo’s first experience with complying with the treatment of prisoners as mandated by international law. If he accepted that this walkabout was going to happen, he could find little wrong with the cowboy’s proposals and preparation--that it was happening at all was his chief objection, but it was beyond his power to stop. So he tried to consider the cowboy’s words carefully, staring at the map and thinking of any potential sites or chokepoints that could serve as a trap--but there were none he could think of.

 

He nodded up at the cowboy. “Very well. What time will we begin?”

 

“1000, precisely--Ms. Vaswani’s a real stickler for schedulin’. ‘Reeha says you asked about cataloguin’ the house, so maybe you could do that right after breakfast and then we’ll set off together?”

 

“Very well.”

 

“Alright, then!” said the cowboy with light relief. “That’s settled, then. I’ll just let you get back t’your, uh--” And to Hanzo’s horror, the tall cowboy looked straight over his head and his gaze settled on the worktable. There was a moment of silence as the cowboy’s eyes widened with obvious interest and Hanzo cursed his own height. “Oh, hey!” the cowboy called out, “Were you workin’ on something else, too?”

 

Hanzo drew in a deep breath and opened his mouth to deflect the cowboy’s interest--but to his astonishment, the cowboy put his hat back on his head, tipped it, and said with a smile that could only be labeled indulgent, “Well then, not only was I burstin’ in all willynilly, I was also interruptin’. Sorry ‘bout that, Agent Shimada, I’ll leave you t’get back to it!” Hanzo could only stare as the cowboy turned on his heel and walked back to the door. When he reached it, he turned to give a half wave and call out, “Oh, and tonight I’ll put my midnight snack next t’my bed so I won’ disturb ya. See ya later, Agent Shimada!” And he went out and carefully shut the door behind him.

 

Hanzo continued staring at the door for a few seconds after he had gone.

 

He drifted back to the worktable, almost in a daze from the combination of a belated but blessedly small wave of adrenaline and relief from the unexpected show of consideration from an equally unexpected source. He traced a finger around the hard edge of a flower petal as he waited for his flight-or-fight reaction to wind down so he could return to work with steadier hands.

 

The cowboy’s performance was the work of a master.

 

If it was--

 

Hanzo clamped down firmly on that train of thought before it could proceed anywhere, anywhere at all.

 

Using a small handsaw, he cut both strips into several pieces, using a ruler to make sure each was about the size of a drink coaster or a playing card--he had left plenty of extra space between the reliefs to assure their safety. Then it was simply a matter of using his smallest chamfer to cut off the sharp edges along each plane--if he were truly a woodcarver, he would have tried to completely round the edges, but he knew his own limits--and give each piece a final sanding with the finest grain sandpaper.

 

As he finished off the last one, he arranged the pieces in a neat row and examined them closely. They were clearly not the work of a professional, but they were not the work of a novice either, to his satisfaction. There were six pieces in all, and while one did not meet his standards on final inspection, the other five were adequate. He carelessly dropped the reject into a small crevice in one of the piles of blocks, but he blew off as much sawdust as possible off the others and carefully pocketed them.

 

He picked up his comm and checked the time. It was less than twenty minutes to midnight. Fatigue began to creep back into his limbs from this revelation, but Hanzo paid it no mind--he was too busy reveling in the success of this venture.

 

He cleaned up quickly, sweeping the shavings, sawdust, and other waste into a small bin open on one side that he used to collect such detritus to act as kindling for burning the garbage dump in the spring, more out of habit than anything else, before he headed out into the cold, crisp darkness outside, turning off the light as he closed the door.

 

The Milky Way was on full display above, masked by only a few dark smears of cloud here and there--there was no moon, so every unobscured bit of stellar light shone at its strongest white and red all across the celestial canopy from mountaintop to mountaintop--so many and so bright that the constellations were almost lost among them, though some were undoubtedly partially hidden by sneakier, invisible black clouds.

 

Hanzo stood still for a few moments, taking it all in. There was a chance the night might end well--he would take this beautiful night sky as a good omen.

 

He walked across to the barn and slipped inside without a sound, flipping on the lights and blinking owlishly at the artificial light that was all the more intense after such darkness. He made short yet leisurely work of the new climbing hold--luckily the screw that held the old one was not bent or stripped in the accident. It certainly did not require twenty minutes to do, but Hanzo took the time anyway. He did a quick walkthrough to see if anything else needed attention when he saw it was only three minutes past midnight--then he simply stood by the side entrance and mindlessly watched the time tick by minute by minute on the comm until it was twenty minutes past.

 

That seemed safe enough.

 

He trekked silently across the road under the cloudy mass of stars and met no one. He hesitated at the door of the eastern house--out of sheer habit and paranoia he stopped to listen for any movement inside before he chastised himself. There would be none. He tapped lightly at the door and went in, opening the door to a satisfyingly dark room with no movement, no presence, no one.

 

He did not turn on the lights as cleaned his feet and moved quickly about in preparation for bed--he chewed noiselessly on the vanilla-flavored wafers as he secreted the wooden tiles into his cello case before he went into the basement to brush his teeth and peel off the stretched wool sweater to wipe himself down a little bit. Afterwards, he pulled it back on, his fatigue winning out over relief from the tight fit, and he cautiously returned upstairs and slipped between the blankets of his bedding.

 

He stared into the darkness, unused to having nothing and no one to wait out, but soon enough his body registered his horizontal position, and the stress and fatigue of the last few days plus the expectation of no strange people walking about apparently convinced his body that it was safe to crash--hard.

 

He hardly knew the difference between closing his eyes and the soft, insistent chime of his comm that came an instant later, through a thick fog that could only be a deep sleep.

 

He churlishly listened to the comm for a few moments, willing it to be silent or to explode or do anything but keep making that noise--until it occurred to him that it must be something important if Athena was trying to wake him up.

 

He struggled about halfway to full consciousness before he was momentarily waylaid by the capricious thought that that was not necessarily true--given the character of several Overwatch agents--

 

But no, he could not assume that.

 

He opened his heavy eyelids with utmost reluctance, blinking in stupefaction at the close up of the faded wallpaper that presented itself. He rolled over away from the wall--he had turned sometime in the night. The comm’s screen was a solid bright white, piercing his eyes something awful even from the table, but he endured it as he sat up and shuffled over on his knees and picked it up. The chime immediately silenced and Athena’s cool blue stylized logo, mercifully on a black background, replaced the blank white.

 

“I apologize, Agent Shimada,” said Athena on speaker. “The time is currently 0700--Agent McCree wanted me to tell you about some last minute arrangements that he and Agent D.Va decided on.”

 

“I see,” said Hanzo with a sleep-deepened and roughened voice. He stared uncomprehendingly at the time--he really did crash. “What are they?”

 

“They decided to enhance the homestead’s defenses with Agent D.Va’s MEKA before the walkabout. She has gone to retrieve it from the Orca, but that means today’s timetable has been delayed by an hour,” Athena explained. Hanzo raised his eyebrows slightly--he had not realized that it was here, too. Perhaps that should have been a given? Perhaps he was not told because of Agent D.Va’s distrust.

 

He rubbed his face, trying to shake free of his suppositions in favor of concentrating on Athena’s words instead--but he was jolted more awake when she said, “Agent Genji has gone with her.  Agent McCree wanted you to know with enough advanced warning not to disturb your usual morning activities, but given that you were asleep I waited until the last possible minute. Given the delay, there is still time to complete them if you wish.”

 

“Ah.” Hanzo knelt there for entirely too long, staring at the decrepit flatscreen TV across from him. Truth be told, the very last thing he wanted to do was his usual morning training, despite the golden opportunity to do so with no audience--but Genji was gone, too, and the Omnic monk was on guard duty for another hour.

 

But he was tired, exhausted, even. The wisest thing to do would be to lie back down and try to get more sleep, but a strengthening desire to do _something_ while he could was welling up in his chest, something that made sleep seem like a waste of time.

 

He slowly shuffled to the cello case and retrieved the chocolate wafers from the French MRE, chewing on them and almost meditating on their strong, sweet flavor on his tongue as he tried to puzzle out what he should do.

 

He had decided to at least rest even if his desire to do anything else prevented him from sleeping, but midway through returning to his bedding he happened to glance at the piano.

 

Ah. He had forgotten to practice the day before--here was something low-intensity yet worthwhile he could do.

 

He took the time to eat a small but calorific breakfast, setting aside the wafers to eat the crackers and tinned cheese also left over from the French MRE. The cheese was indeed far better than tinned cheese had any right to be, to Hanzo’s slight amusement, but he was glad to finish up with the chocolate wafers--as well as one last packet of coffee grounds.

 

Eating alone in the sitting room was nearly as refreshing as sleep would have been.

 

When he finished, he sat on the piano bench and went through a quiet yet thorough warmup, letting the easy concentration wipe away the last of the sleepy fog and the clumsy, stilted feeling fade from his fingers before he launched into actual compositions, keeping the tone light for now--he felt like these would be the kind of things that Agent Mei was likely to enjoy, which was a lucky coincidence.

 

It also helped counteract the heaviness of the past few days, which was not an insignificant thing.

 

Hanzo allowed his mind to drift with the music, concentrating on the precise notes but also appreciating the structure and wordless storytelling--and so he nearly missed the sound of a door opening.

 

His eyes popped open--he had not even realized they were closed.

 

The cowboy--he had been so preoccupied with Genji and the Omnic monk that he had forgotten the cowboy--

 

He appeared in the entrance to the hallway, hesitant, holding his hat in both hands, but otherwise fully dressed in flannel and jeans. He had a baleful expression as he looked at Hanzo, sitting frozen at the piano.

 

“Beggin’ your pardon, Agent Shimada,” the cowboy said slowly and carefully. “Sorry to interrupt--again--but I, uh--I gotta fuel up for my shift.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips--what a fool he was! “I apologize, Agent McCree, for disturbing you,” he said as he lowered the fallboard over the keys. “I--I did not think to check if you were in the house.”

 

The cowboy raised his hands slightly, clutching his hat in one hand. “No, no! I’ve been awake for a while, I’ve been keepin’ an eye on things while we’re down two agents. I, uh--it was a pleasant surprise t’hear you, actually. I didn’ want t’come out because--” He stopped short and bit his bottom lip for a moment. “--because I didn’ want t’make you feel like you had t’stop.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips a little.

 

Frankly, it was something of a surprise even to himself that his main fear was waking or disturbing the cowboy. His reassurances that he had been awake--had, in fact, been keeping watch in a way--were indeed reassuring, funnily enough. Otherwise, Hanzo’s feelings about being caught playing were astonishingly neutral, but why--

 

His expression cleared when he thought of the likely reason. He was doing this on Agent Mei’s request, so it was--somewhat--Overwatch business.

 

And someone was going to hear him playing eventually, accidentally or not.

 

“Agent Mei asked if I would be willing to play for her,” he said quietly, “so I am trying to ensure an adequate performance. I apologize for not checking if I would be disturbing you, but I am relieved that I did not.”

 

“Naw, you weren’ at all,” said the cowboy with a small yet cautious smile. “In point of fact, I was, uh--I was enjoyin’ it. I don’ think Mei will be disappointed. What, uh--what were you just playin’?”

 

Between letting his mind wander and the shock of being caught, Hanzo had to think for a moment. _“Ano natsu e,”_ he said at last. “It--it is difficult to translate. It means something like ‘thinking back to that summer’ or ‘an ode to that summer’, or even ‘going back to that summer’. Literally it is just--‘to that summer’,” he finished lamely.

 

The cowboy’s smile widened a little. “I getcha,” he said with no little humor. “Translation ain’ always a straightforward thing, specially when they don’ give you much.”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo, fidgeting a little. Acting on a sudden curiosity, he asked, “Do you think it would be to Agent Mei’s liking? Do you happen to know what kind of music she likes?”

 

The cowboy’s eyes widened. “Oh--y’know, I dunno, really. We, uh--we never were _too_ close. She was in Overwatch’s research department and I was in Blackwatch, so our paths didn’ cross too often. But, uh, I’d say she’d probably like that just fine.”

 

Hanzo frowned slightly, dissatisfied with the answer--if nothing else, the cowboy knew Agent Mei better than he did. “Do you have any suggestions for what she may like, even if you do not know exactly?”

 

The cowboy laughed self-consciously. “Oh, well, I know a little something about music, but not much about what’d sound good on the piano. The only piano piece I know by name is--” The cowboy paused with a brief faraway look.

 

He visibly shook himself with a cough.

 

“Moonlight Sonata,” he said with a smile that did not quite reach his eyes. “She’ll like most stuff, I reckon, but Moonlight Sonata’d sound good t’anyone.”

 

Hanzo narrowed his eyes at the cowboy’s behavior, but nevertheless he considered his words. That piece was--challenging, to say the least, but he did have it memorized. He would often play it just before heading out to his outdoor target range to get as much blood into his hands and forearms as possible before facing the long walk in the bitter cold.

 

“Perhaps,” he murmured, looking back at the piano with a frown. “But I am not sure if I’m equal to it.”

 

There was silence for a few moments before, tentatively, carefully, the cowboy ventured to say, “I could--give it a listen, tell you how it sounds?” He had hardly said the words when he was already backtracking. “If you’d rather not,” he said hurriedly. “I’d understand, it’s, uh--just a suggestion.”

 

Hanzo shot him a cool but considering look. His main concern was whether the cowboy’s act--

 

\--if it w--

 

\--would allow a frank assessment. On one hand, the cowboy might attempt to appeal to his ego and attempt to butter him up no matter how poor the performance. On the other--on the other, he might give an honest opinion to try to increase Hanzo’s trust in him and lower his guard.

 

Well, then, this would be an opportunity to further refine what the cowboy’s strategy was.

 

“Is there time?” he asked, looking at his comm. It was 0734. “You have not eaten yet.”

 

“Oh, sure,” said the cowboy after a moment that might have been out of shock. “Sure! Plenty of time. Where, uh--where d’you want me?”

 

Hanzo shrugged slightly as he turned back to the piano and lifted the fallboard. “Anywhere you are comfortable.”

 

He heard the cowboy take up a position in the kitchen--perhaps leaning on the counter--before he took a breath, set his fingers over the keys, and launched into the slow, echoing chords of the first movement.

 

He was immediately glad to have allowed himself an audience--a bundle of nerves grew in the pit of his stomach as he played, an antsy feeling that tried to get in the way of his smooth fingerwork--it was almost like he was warming up again, trying to work out the clumsy feeling.

 

It had been a long while since he had dealt with stage fright.

 

He determinedly barrelled his way through it, making sure to breathe, concentrating on the sound and the structure rather than the eyes watching and the ears listening.

 

He made a few minor mistakes in the first half of the movement, but calling on these techniques soon made his trepidation quite manageable, and the rest went quite well. He could already tell that the third movement would be more difficult than usual, but at least he had a chance to find out how difficult exactly in front of someone who was not Agent Mei. She was the one to make the request, and thus the audience to prepare for.

 

Soon enough, the last chord of the first movement faded away into silence--and the cowboy’s loud applause rang out and drowned out the sharp, lilting first notes of the second movement.

 

Hanzo turned with one eyebrow raised. The cowboy already had arms crossed across his chest with his hands stuck into his armpits, his face horror-stricken and confused. “Wasn’ that the end?” he asked plaintively.

 

Hanzo’s lips twitched at the corners. “No,” he said.

 

“There’s more?” asked the cowboy hesitantly.

 

“Indeed. Two more movements.”

 

“Oh. I, uh--I didn’ know,” said the cowboy, his cheeks reddening. “My mama used t’play that, but, uh, I guess she’d stop there?”

 

Hanzo nodded. “Many pianists do. The other two movements are quite different, the third especially.” He moved to lower the fallboard. “Since you have not heard them, I will not bore you.”

 

“Well, now, wait a minute, now I’m curious!” the cowboy declared, lowering his arms. “All my life I thought that was all there was t’Moonlight Sonata, and it turns out there’s whole other movements I hadn’ heard before? I was wonderin’ why you thought there wouldn’ be time!”

 

Hanzo considered for a moment. Perhaps the cowboy _was_ trying to appeal to his ego, because the thought of playing the notorious third movement to a first time audience lit a kind of self-satisfied flame in his chest--the cowboy had _no idea_ what was coming.

 

Allegedly.

 

“Very well,” he said.

 

The second movement was only a little more than two minutes long, a short ditty more than anything, but now Hanzo had to restrain himself from playing it sloppily out of sheer anticipation. When the almost outro-like last notes faded, he could not help but glance at the cowboy--he was leaning on the counter, eyes alight with interest, not looking the least bit bored. He nodded when their eyes met. “Sounds nice,” he said encouragingly.

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow once more, turned back to the keys--and virtually attacked them.

 

He had always thought of playing the third movement that way--it was beautiful, but vicious.

 

Hanzo’s playing style was usually fairly low and slow, which made the rapid, almost fluttering motions the movement demanded all the more challenging. His right hand especially had to flit back and forth across nearly half the keys, but the sheer fervid ferocity of the piece was well worth the effort, even as it threw his earlier notions of a “low-intensity” activity right out the window--sweat was beading on his brow before he was a third of the way through.

 

And of course, this being the Moonlight Sonata and his piano being a modern piano, he had to half-pedal nearly the entire time, never letting up out of that razor-thin sweet spot no matter how much he concentrated on the keys.

 

Despite the challenges, he could not help but glance at the cowboy several times during the short respites the piece allowed seemingly out of pity for the pianist.

 

From the very beginning the cowboy looked amazed, and halfway through his jaw had dropped.

 

Most satisfying. Hanzo did not even care anymore if it was an act.

 

He hardly remembered to keep track of his mistakes, if any--he rather hoped that Agent Mei had never heard of the Moonlight Sonata’s other two movements either. Even if he was making mistakes, her reaction would likely be worth it, if the cowboy was any indication.

 

He finished off the piece with a flourish that almost mandatory, given that the ending obliged both his hands to sweep up and then down the keys side by side before the two final pounding chords, before he looked at the cowboy with a small, smug smile as he pressed the pedal down fully at last to allow them to hang in the air as long as possible.

 

It took a few moments for the cowboy to say anything--Hanzo watched his jaw work in vain before he finally cleared his throat.

 

“Well, uh--” he said, and deliberate or no, his show of amazement was a pleasure to behold. He even waved his hat a little in one hand as he tried to think of what to say.

 

“I think I see why my mama stopped where she did.”

 

Hanzo’s smile grew a little as he lowered the fallboard over the keys. “If nothing else, the tone shift is quite--dramatic,” he said as he brushed his fingers over its surface.

 

“No kidding!” the cowboy said, laughing a little. “She used t’play Moonlight Sonata t’help me get t’sleep. If she’d played the rest, I’da been up all night!”

 

“It is even more understandable, then,” agreed Hanzo as he stood, still basking in the sense of success. “Do you believe Agent Mei would enjoy it, or do you think the difference between the movements would be too jarring?”

 

“It’ll surprise her, that’s for sure!” said the cowboy with a grin. “I say do it--record her reaction, even.”

 

Hanzo shook his head--a recording was out of the question. But at the very least, the prospect of playing for Agent Mei was looking much more attractive.

 

The cowboy looked a little put out, but not seriously so. “Alright then,” he mumbled, though still with a small smile. He took out his comm and checked the time. “Listen, lemme grab a bite to eat and we can go over together.”

 

“Very well,” said Hanzo, sobering quickly now that more serious business was at hand. He also checked his comm. There was just enough time. “I will return shortly--I must shave and bathe.”

 

“Good idea,” said the cowboy with slight pink tinge in his cheeks. “Our guest is mighty particular--the more put-together people look, the more relaxed she is. Oh hey!” he said almost gleefully as he opened the cupboard. “Did we finally get through all those _raciones_ ? Hot damn! _El rey ha muerto; vive le roi!”_

 

Hanzo blinked at the unexpected lingual shift, but he merely nodded and swept out of the room and into the basement after grabbing a change of clothes--he had no idea why he had not taken the opportunity to change out of the too-small sweater and pants the night before, but at least now his preferred thick winter gi and hakama were available for the walkabout.

 

When he returned off hurried shaving and scrubbing himself and putting his hair up in its usual ponytail--though it was becoming increasingly floppy as his hair lengthened--he saw that the cowboy, much like Hanzo, apparently considered a single ration more than enough, though he had powered through both main courses, the crackers, the cheese, and an energy bar in the little time Hanzo had been downstairs. Seeing the cowboy pocket the chocolate bar inspired Hanzo to do the same with the power bar and the chocolate bar he had stashed in his cello case. After the cowboy finished up, primly wiping off his mouth with a handkerchief he produced from his back pocket, he nodded at Hanzo and said, “Alright, let’s roll.”

 

Hanzo followed the cowboy outside and to the western house’s entrance, where he knocked out his _dits_ and _dahs_ once more. Agent Mei answered, trying to smile as she did so but it was wiped away by an enormous yawn. “Oh! Sorry, sorry!” she said as she stepped aside to allow them in. “Looks like I’ll need a lot of tea to get through today.”

 

The cowboy opened his mouth to say something as he took off his hat, but he was beaten to it by a short and curt, “My apologies.”

 

Agent Mei whipped around. “Oh no, no!” she said, raising both hands placatingly. “No, it’s not _your_ fault! I tried to get some extra sleep yesterday to prepare, but my brain still expects to go to bed soon, that’s all!”

 

As Hanzo stepped in behind the cowboy, his eyebrows shot up. Two large bicycle hooks had been screwed into opposite walls in the sitting room, and two long bungee cords were stretched between them. Blankets were thrown over them to wall off about one-third of the room--which appeared to be a “cell” of sorts for the Vishkar agent.

 

She sat crosslegged and stiffly upright just inside a gap where the blankets had been pulled back, the freeform restraint gleaming on her wrist just under the end of the sleeve of a thick black sweater. Her ankle restraints were hidden under equally black pants--she looked almost like a cat burglar. She still wore her transparent golden visor, and her hair was still styled with a trail of bangs over her face with the rest gathered in a prim bun.

 

She thinned her lips slightly at Agent Mei’s words. “I see,” she said, still sounding rather curt. “The body’s circadian rhythm can be inconvenient.”

 

“For sure!” affirmed Agent Mei with a smile.

 

“Good morning Agent McCree, Agent Shimada,” the Vishkar agent said, abruptly switching her attention to them. “Are we back on schedule?”

 

“Sure are, Ms. Vaswani,” said the cowboy warmly as he sat to clean his shoes. “We’ll be headin’ out in--” he checked his comm. “--three hours, two minutes, as close to 1100 as we can get it. Sorry again for the delay--last minute change of plans and all, you know how it is.”

 

The Vishkar agent sniffed slightly. “Yes,” she said with utmost reluctance. “I do.”

 

The cowboy smiled, seemingly out of nothing else to say or do. He gestured at Hanzo and said, “Agent Shimada here’s gonna be workin’ in the bedrooms and the basement in the meantime. Will that be a problem?”

 

“Of course not,” said the Vishkar agent, but her lips began to border on a scowl. “Am I allowed to know what he is doing?”

 

The cowboy quickly yet visibly internally debated the question, even glancing at Hanzo for a split-second, but he did not arrive at the same answer Hanzo would have, or would have expected. “Sure,” he said, still cheerful. “He’s conductin’ an inventory of the supplies on-site.”

 

She nodded slowly. “I see.” If she was surprised to get an answer, she did not show it--if she was _accustomed_ to getting answers, Hanzo could not tell, but it seemed to be a distinct possibility. “I offer my assistance, if you will take it. Organization is--something I enjoy.” She tried to keep her voice neutral, but Hanzo thought he could detect an undercurrent of great interest.

 

“Hmm, now there’s an idea,” murmured the cowboy, rubbing his chin. Hanzo tried to limit his reaction to lifting his eyebrows slightly, but it was difficult, so he tried to hide his reaction as best he could as he traded places with the cowboy. He had said he wanted Hanzo’s supervision to make sure he was not treating the Vishkar agent too harshly, but here and now it seemed he had gone quite far in the opposite direction. “I don’ think we can give you access to our catalog just yet, but--” he turned to Hanzo, “Ms. Vaswani here’s been awful strict about the layout and such. Her quarters are actually a third, for example--exactly a third of the room, were you t’get out your tape measure and check.” His eyes glittered with something akin to amusement. “So I’d say she’d be an asset if we were t’repack all your supplies for ease of transport. Whaddaya think of that, Agent Shimada?”

 

Hanzo did not bother to hide his frown. Giving the Vishkar agent access to hi--Overwatch’s supplies, _food_ supplies, did not seem in the least bit wise. He glanced at the Vishkar agent, studying her garb in that brief moment. It was apparent she had been provided clothing, so any bugs she might have on her person would be implanted or stored in her stomach--or elsewhere--but a good agent could surreptitiously recover such a bug for planting no matter where it was carried.

 

Of course, she _had_ been scanned by Athena--and the cowboy _was_ a former black ops agent who would surely be even more familiar with such dangers than Hanzo. If the Vishkar agent managed to pull one over Overwatch, it would hardly be Hanzo’s fault--but it might become his concern regardless.

 

He sighed internally.

 

“Very well,” he said. “The supplies are already organized, but for ease of access rather than of transport. It would not be too difficult a task for you to assist with, Ms. Vaswani.”

 

“Any task is welcome,” she responded, and her voice was now--not _thick_ with relief, but compared to her earlier, almost robotic tone, the difference was stark. “It has been difficult sitting idle.”

 

“Sorry ‘bout that, Ms. Vaswani,” said the cowboy regretfully, fiddling with his hat in his hands. “We’ve been lookin’ into ways to address that.”

 

The Vishkar agent looked surprised. “O-oh,” she said, flushing slightly. “I--appreciate your efforts.”

 

“Not at all, Ms. Vaswani.” The cowboy put his hat on his chest and bowed slightly.

 

They were interrupted at that moment by Agent Pharah appearing in the hallway, dressed in her camo fatigues and her hair gathered back, except for two plaits by her temples. “Shift change!” she called out, banging her fist on the wall. “Shift change!”

 

“Right on time,” said the cowboy as Agent Mei giggled. “Since you’re not headin’ t’bed, Mei, how ‘bout you stay here while I give Agent Shimada a hand? The faster we get through the first couple a’boxes, the sooner we can hand ‘em over t’Ms. Vaswani.”

 

“Sure!” she said pleasantly, and the cowboy led Hanzo to the first bedroom and opened the door for Hanzo.

 

This bedroom was being shared by two agents, and Hanzo could make a fairly educated guess as to which ones: one sleeping bag was emblazoned with the Helix Security logo and the other with the Overwatch sigil stamped over the continent of Antarctica. He could imagine Agent D.Va being impertinent enough to claim a bedroom all to herself despite her junior rank--or possibly, he suddenly thought, remembering her handheld console, her fellow agents had narrowly avoided sleepless nights brought on by the bright glow of a screen.

 

A brief image of a similar console being held by Genji’s unblemished hands as it lit up the entire interior of a tent involuntarily passed before Hanzo’s eyes, and he batted it away as quickly as he could.

 

Soon enough he could distract himself with the task at hand. The cowboy followed Hanzo’s suggestion that he start with the row of plastic storage bins that contained various pieces of equipment rather than the food bins--they contained far less to catalog, and Hanzo preferred to keep that harder work to himself.

 

But it did not turn out that way--while the cowboy had to physically describe each piece of equipment from its purpose to its material, Athena almost immediately directed Hanzo to simply scan the UPC codes on nearly every can and box, and all the needed information was instantly filled in.

 

The cowboy refused to switch, though, when Hanzo offered, and so Hanzo only pursed his lips and returned to his work.

 

Hanzo felt three bins was enough of a buffer between him and the Vishkar agent, so once he got that far he went to get her. She had hardly moved when he went back into the sitting room, but the remains of an MRE were beside her, and Hanzo noted how even they were meticulously organized. Agent Pharah accompanied her in the room, but she elected to stand over by the cowboy, which Hanzo took as a sign that the Vishkar agent was effectively under his supervision. He gestured at the three open food bins. “As you can see,” he said, “there is not much in each bin.”

 

She nodded. “Do you have a preference for how they should be packed, other than to simply maximize the amount per container?”

 

“I--no. Space is the only consideration.”

 

“Very well. Everything shall soon be in its place,” she said with surprising intensity as she turned to the bins, knelt beside them, and reached in with her one hand.

 

Hanzo could not help but hover over her for a few moments, watching with narrowed eyes as she began to take out cans of food, but Agent Pharah called over, “I’m watching her, don’t worry.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips but dragged himself away.

 

He almost insisted on switching tasks with the cowboy again--if nothing else, it meant both him and Agent Pharah would be close by the Vishkar agent if she attempted anything, but the rather simple task of scanning barcodes was less of a distraction than he would have liked--from both Ms. Vaswani and the long ago memory of Genji he had happened across.

 

It had been during an ill-fated camping trip, a multi-day hike that Genji had accompanied him on at the rare behest of both their parents, though for wildly different reasons. Their father had seen it simply as a bonding opportunity for two brothers who had once been close but now spent very little time with each other, their mother simply as a means to keep Genji away from some delicate negotiations, delicate enough that keeping Genji away was more important than Hanzo’s attendance.

 

Genji had hated it before it began, shoving maps of mobile phone coverage in Hanzo’s face during the trip to the Akaishi Mountains and complaining about everything he was going to miss while out in the middle of nowhere. Once there, he revealed that he had brought very little that Hanzo had advised--he did not even bring a good pair of boots, and suffered accordingly--but he _did_ remember to bring portable solar panels to keep his various electronics charged for use far into the night, with predictable results once it was time to move on in the morning.

 

They exchanged many harsh words during that trip. Hanzo’s jaw tightened upon recollecting each and every one--they were not particularly loathsome or vile by themselves, but in hindsight they had been several steps down a road that ended on a quiet, warm night in May with the wind whispering through the cherry blossoms.

 

Except it had not ended there.

 

It refused to end, it seemed.

 

He finished with his bins soon enough. “Go on t’the next room,” ordered the cowboy as he studied a case of splints meant to immobilize elbow, wrists, and fingers in the event of a broken bone with a frown. “We’ll catch up once Ms. Vaswani’s done.”

 

“It will not be long,” she said with confidence, and indeed, she had moved much faster than Hanzo had anticipated. He glanced in the packed bin she had consolidated out of three others--there was very, very little wasted space despite the disparate contents.

 

He moved on to the other bedroom and raised his eyebrows at Agent D.Va’s belongings--he might have predicted the clutter of her more personal items, but not the stark contrast between them and the obviously military-issue equipment. A backpack was thrown carelessly across the ground with various things spilling out of it or shoved up alongside it, while a duffel bag lay precisely beside a sleeping bag that was laid out without a ruffle or wrinkle, with a locked ammunition box at its head.

 

He imagined Agent D.Va standing at attention while an officer inspected her spotless barrack--and a room overflowing with tablets, posters, _manhwa_ , and junkfood while she sat at her PC with giant headphones on. It was disconcerting seeing the juxtaposition in his mind’s eye, so he moved to the equipment-bearing bins quickly and lost himself among their contents before he could give her or the Vishkar agent or Genji any more thought.

 

He had gotten through a significant portion of the equipment by the time he was joined by the other three agents, which he greeted distractedly. He was absorbed enough in his work--or appeared so--that the cowboy did not even comment on their switched roles. The only sounds in the room were the low conversation between Agent Pharah and the cowboy and the occasional metallic clinks and clunks from both Hanzo and the Vishkar agent’s work.

 

Surprisingly, when Hanzo moved to go to the basement, the Vishkar agent stood as well--she really was quick.

 

“We are likely to have less than an hour left to us when we are finished,” she said as she followed Hanzo and Agent Pharah down into the basement with the cowboy guarding the rear.

 

“Yeah, we still got a hundred and three minutes,” confirmed the cowboy. “Enough time to rest up from all this hard work.”

 

The Vishkar agent stopped suddenly and turned, fixing him with a disdainful look. “If this has been strenuous for you, perhaps you should ask Agent Mei to replace you.”

 

“Naw, not really, Ms. Vaswani,” he said, raising his hands. “I’m just exaggeratin’ a little.”

 

“Hm,” was her only verbal response, but a little later on, once Hanzo had pointed out the general organization of basement, she marched over and, lowering her voice, said, “If Agent McCree’s attention has been wandering, his work will need to be checked for errors.”

 

He stared at her for a moment, thrown by how seriously she was taking the whole affair, but he recovered quickly. “Of course. I will examine the records to be sure,” he told her, not mentioning that Athena was likely all the backup the cowboy needed since he was already a quartermaster--but the less she knew about Athena and her comprehensive duties, the better.

 

She nodded, looking satisfied, before she rejoined the two Overwatch agents cataloguing the few food supplies he kept down here--the threat of flooding from a broken water pipe meant that he did not risk many supplies down here. They finished up fairly quickly, and the cowboy surprised Hanzo by clapping him on the shoulder with a gloved hand. “Alright! That’ll be the entire homestead--unless you got more hidden around here?” he asked with a grin.

 

Hanzo managed not to freeze, but he could not help but tense so rigidly it was a wonder he did not dislocate one or both shoulders.

 

The cowboy noticed.

 

“Didn’ take very long at all,” he continued without a missing a beat--or tried to, as he withdrew his gloved hand with as little aplomb as possible, but there was a crease between his eyebrows and his grin slackened a minute amount. “

 

Hanzo, for his part, was trying to pry his shoulderblades apart as least as far as something resembling normal, which, if Agent Pharah and the Vishkar agent were any indication, he seemed to succeed at. They did not seem to notice anything had happened.

 

“I have not completed the inventory in the western house yet, Agent McCree,” he said as soon as he found his voice.

 

“Aw, hell,” groaned the cowboy, smacking his forehead with his metal arm. “That was the other thing I meant t’tell ya yesterday. I got everything there before and after dinner--I was feelin’ antsy, and from the way you’ve been about goin’ in the pantry, I thought you might appreciate not havin’ to, uh--”

 

To ask permission to go into Genji’s bedroom, Hanzo completed in his mind. He felt a strange mix of bitter relief--on one hand, the cowboy had saved him some handwringing, but on the other, he had robbed Hanzo of a valuable excuse to stay out of sight and out of mind.

 

If he was completely honest with himself, however, the former far outweighed the latter.

 

“Then we are indeed done, as you say,” he said, a little more tension bleeding out from between his shoulders.

 

“Uh, yeah,” said the cowboy, studying his face for a moment before his own brightened a little. “Now that we got everything logged, we can calculate fair compensation for you.”

 

“I do not require compensation, Agent McCree,” said Hanzo instantly. “All of this would have been abandoned under normal circumstances. You may treat it as such.”

 

The Vishkar agent shot him a sharp look.

 

“Not this again,” groaned Agent Pharah, shaking a disapproving pointer finger at him. “Maybe once we shove a sack of cash into your hands you’ll come around.”

 

“Let’s just drop it for now,” the cowboy interjected. “How ‘bout Agent Shimada and I see what we could use and make plans for shippin’ it out instead?” He looked around to get a nod from both Hanzo and Agent Pharah before they all trooped upstairs.

 

The Vishkar agent returned directly to the sitting room and sat in the gap in the blankets once more, with Agent Pharah taking up a position directly across from her. The cowboy waved Hanzo into the kitchen and, setting his comm on the counter, brought up the catalog. Each item in the long list was colored green, yellow, and red. The cowboy hummed as he scrolled through, sometimes happening upon whole swathes of green. “Looks like we could use all the food,” he said quietly. “Ms. Vaswani’s got everything here all consolidated, and Athena’s scannin’ it as we speak. Once she’s given the all-clear, we can probably get started gettin’ that moved out post-haste. Never know when we’ll have t’ship out in a hurry.”

 

“Indeed,” said Hanzo. “The bins are easy to strap onto the sides of hovercycles--there should be no need for the trailer.”

 

“Agreed,” said the cowboy as he continued browsing the list. “Most everything else is a solid ‘maybe’ accordin’ to Athena. Stuff that could be useful, but not strictly necessary. The rest--” The cowboy abruptly stopped scrolling. In the middle of the screen was a red line scrunched between yellow on either side, but Hanzo could not clearly see the text.

 

The cowboy bit his lip for a moment before looking up at Hanzo. “So--” he began with utmost care. “I found the, uh--the cello. I--I was wonderin’ if I could buy that off of you--if you weren’ plannin’ on keepin’ it, mind.”

 

Hanzo blinked in surprise. “Of course, Agent McCree,” he answered smoothly nevertheless. He had to, before a strange mixture of feeling settling in his gut prevented him from speaking, a fierce protective fury entwined with an almost overwhelming sense of mollification.

 

The cello was probably the most personal of his personal possessions. Learning the piano had been a part of his childhood curriculum, something he needed to learn as naturally as reading and ninjutsu--the cello, on the other hand, was among the few skills he had learned in adulthood, long after his education was being carefully monitored. It had been an important part of keeping the worst of the cold, dark winter isolation at bay--learning from scratch, learning something that interested him (he could very well have used a guitar case or similar instead, but the cello had caught his eye in that dusty, noisy music shop years and years ago)--it had felt almost like the keystone of all his activities in recharging himself to take on another long year of penance, blood, and carnage.

 

Giving it to a (possibly hostile) stranger was--

 

\--far better than allowing it to rot away, forever silent.

 

Assuming the stranger did not immediately smash it against a rock as soon as he was able.

 

“I just ask because I used t’be somethin’ of a fiddler.”

 

Hanzo blinked as he returned to the present out of his thoughts, focusing on the cowboy’s faintly concerned expression. “Oh?” he asked stupidly.

 

The cowboy coughed a little. “Yeah, it ain’ something you’d expect,” he said with more than a trace of self-consciousness.

 

“Yeah, who’d expect the guy in the cowboy hat to be able to play ‘Turkey in the Straw’?” Agent Pharah suddenly called over.

 

The cowboy flushed a surprisingly deep red. “Aw, hell,” he muttered with equal parts anger and embarrassment, “Why’d you have t’bring that old shit up?”

 

Agent Pharah looked as surprised as Hanzo felt. “Whoa, there, partner,” she said half-jokingly, half-concernedly. “I didn’t mean to--”

 

“Yeah, well, you did,” he snapped, cutting her off. He looked as though he instantly regretted it, his mouth twisting into a grimace. “Sorry,” he muttered. Then, awkwardly, “So, uh--I figured maybe a cello might be a mite easier t’learn cuz you don’ even gotta hold it up, ha.”

 

“I--see,” said Hanzo slowly. “Any musical instruction is a boon towards learning a new instrument.”

 

“For sure,” replied the cowboy, the blush beginning to fade. “So, uh--I’ll just--take care of that. Thanks, Agent Shimada.”

 

“Not at all, Agent McCree,” he said as his mixed feelings spiked again, reaching up into his chest. He shoved them firmly back down--it did not matter. It did _not_ matter.

 

“Welp, looks like it’s time t’get going. You excited, Ms. Vaswani?”

 

She stood in one fluid motion. “Yes,” she said simply, though she hardly looked it.

 

“Alright, then!” The cowboy minimized the catalog and brought up the messaging app, glancing at it. “Looks like everyone’s good t’go.” He strode to the entrance and threw the doors open before gesturing grandly with his arms. “Ladies.”

 

Agent Pharah bowed her head slightly at his showmanship with a small smile and went out. The Vishkar agent followed close behind, her reaction limited to thinned lips. “Keep a sharp eye out,” the cowboy muttered as Hanzo passed by. He plopped his hat on his head and fixed Hanzo with a serious look. “If it’s gonna happen, it’ll be now.”

 

Hanzo nodded, his own face blank. He agreed completely.

 

The two men followed Ms. Vaswani after the cowboy locked the door. She hardly spared a look at the homestead--instead she had her head tilted back as though she was staring at the puffy clouds arranged in ripples wide ripples across the blue sky. She breathed deep and let it out in a quiet sigh that nevertheless almost echoed in off the walls of the surrounding buildings in the absolute silence. She suddenly glanced back at Hanzo and the cowboy and looked straight ahead once more as though embarrassed by her reaction, following Agent Pharah as she led the small group to the road.

 

The walkabout was leisurely--the terrain in the depression was almost completely flat, with only the gentlest of rises even as they followed the winding grass-grown road northward and approached the valley that led to the slopes of Tuk-a-chi. It was a wide, U-shaped glacial valley that framed the far-off volcanic peak with forest on either side, with a small gorge that marked the path of the spring-fed stream that once watered the vast fields and farmland. The road flirted with heading straight up the valley but turned to the west at the last minute to trace out its mouth, serving both as a belt route and a clear border between the cultivated and wild land further up.

 

The sun peeked through the ripples of cloud from time to time, with great patches of light sweeping back and forth across the ground and painting the forest with mottled brighter colors among the shade. When it deigned to shine directly on them, it was enough to make Hanzo almost uncomfortably warm given the exercise, but all three of his companions soaked it up, with Agent Pharah even turning her whole body to face the sun while walking sideways or backward or whatever was necessary.

 

“Haaaa,” she breathed when she received a full five minutes of uninterrupted sunshine. “I’m almost warm again. The moment I get back home, I’m just going to lay down in the street and _burn.”_

 

“Doesn’ your dad build up your tolerance any?” jabbed the cowboy.

 

“Two weeks a year isn’t enough,” she retorted. “No matter how much ice fishing he and Reinhardt insist on.”

 

After about an hour they reached a bend that dipped back down towards the south, allowing Agent Pharah to walk more or less normally, though they almost immediately lost the sun behind a cloudbank. “Right on schedule,” muttered Agent Pharah. “Damn Mei and her reliable forecasts.”

 

Two comms chimed in unison, and both Agent Pharah and the cowboy swatted at their pockets before they glanced at each other with serious expressions.

 

“Agent Shimada, you mind walking with Ms. Vaswani for a sec?” asked the cowboy. Hanzo nodded, pursing his lips slightly, as the two Overwatch agents hung back a few paces and began speaking to each other in low voices--and both were scanning the horizon.

 

His shoulders tensed immediately.

 

He moved to walk alongside Ms. Vaswani--he let the Overwatch agents watch their backs while he began looking for any trouble from ahead. The gentle rise was more than enough to leave the entire flat depression open to their view, and it stretched with a patchwork of broken fences, overgrown fields, and the occasional brown line of a road. He studied it all, all the way to the southern entrance where he had met the Vishkar agent.

 

She, for her part, walked on with no sign of perturbation or anticipation.

 

But she did glance behind her to see how far behind the Overwatch agents were. Hanzo readied for any sudden movements--a strike to his face or groin, perhaps, or a dash for cover.

 

Instead she turned to him and said in almost a whisper, “Am I responsible for driving Overwatch out of this installation?”

 

“Yes,” he said automatically, still waiting for the blow.

 

She pressed her lips firmly together and looked straight ahead. “My apologies. I--did not mean to cause such an inconvenience.”

 

He stared at her for a moment before he moved slightly away and started scanning the sky and mountain ridges before him for any signs of movement. “It is no inconvenience.”

 

She looked at him sidelong. “Is it not?” she asked doubtfully. “Overwatch cannot have many clandestine outposts available to them at this time.”

 

Hanzo could not help but raise an eyebrow. What had the cowboy told her? Or had she just assumed?

 

“Unless--was this your private residence?”

 

“No, Ms. Vaswani,” said Hanzo. His focus on the possibility of an attack did not stop a distinct tired note from creeping into his voice--not _this_ again, and at such a time and from such a person. “I do not own any of this in any capacity.”

 

She looked at him quizzically. “Then--” She paused and shook her head slightly, looking mystified. “Then did this place once belong to the Shimada-gumi?”

 

Hanzo’s insides turned to ice, but he forced himself to act normally and put one foot in front of the other, not even looking back to see how private this conversation was, if it would be his word against hers if he reported her knowledge of his family and she denied it.

 

How much did she know? And how?

 

“No,” he said at length. “The Shimada-gumi are not affiliated with Overwatch. Were you told otherwise?”

 

“No, but--I assumed that you brought former Shimada assets with you when you joined Overwatch.”

 

Hanzo fixed her with an incredulous look. “That would be difficult,” he said dryly, “I have no such assets. I left with nothing.”

 

Again, she looked astonished. “Then--” She seemed to struggle for words for a few moments, her formerly expressionless and controlled facade wavering in and out with sheer confusion. “Then--what did you offer them?”

 

Hanzo knitted his eyebrows together. “What?”

 

“What did you offer Overwatch to entice them to accept you?”

 

Hanzo almost laughed in her face.

 

What had he done to _entice_ them? Nothing he was or had done or could offer was attractive to any reputable organization, clandestine or not. The word was better applied to Genji’s efforts to persuade Winston to take him on--Hanzo doubted anyone with an iota less of stubborn charm could have done it, which made it all the more frustrating that Genji had bent it to benefit his murderer.

 

But what to say to the Vishkar agent? Since she knew already of the Shimada-gumi, she may very well know of Genji’s “death” and Hanzo’s own fall--though how, exactly, was a worrying question. She might have been fishing for confirmation for some unknown Vishkar purpose, but it was hard to see how it would benefit the corporation.

 

The thought of the Sombra Collective suddenly occurred to him--was it trying to gather information on him? Or had it already, and passed it on to her? Somehow the idea of hackers stumbling upon the intrigues of the Shimada seemed more plausible than Vishkar taking an interest in it--but only marginally.

 

But what to say? He could not explain the situation to the Vishkar agent, even if he wanted to--Genji had forbidden it.

 

“I cannot discuss the details of my recruitment,” he said at last, slowly, still scanning the land and sky ahead. “But it was a recruitment. I offered nothing, and nothing was expected of me but loyalty and obedience.”

 

She was openly staring at him now--he could see it out of the corner of his eye.

 

“You were the head of one of the largest criminal organizations in the world,” she said quietly. “Were you not?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And this does not concern Overwatch?”

 

Hanzo could not help a tiny ironic smile. Incredible, no? he wanted to say. Imbecilic, yes?

 

What was he _did_ say was, “My past actions are clearly of concern, but Overwatch has taken steps to mitigate the danger I poise.” He looked at her sidelong. She snapped her eyes ahead as a small flush appeared in her cheeks at being caught out. “I am currently completing a trial period in the field to test my abilities and loyalty."

 

“And afterwards?” she asked, but it was distinctly pressing, though she kept her eyes ahead.

 

He shrugged, though he was not sure she could see it. “Overwatch will evaluate my performance and reassess my membership.”

 

He tried to sound nonchalant, but the subject pricked at his heart more than he expected. He had not expected to reach the end of the six-month period--he had expected--

 

But nearly four months had elapsed, and his expectations were still in vain. Winston seemed to expect that Hanzo would most likely leave at that time, but that was impossible--it was not in Hanzo’s power to leave. Not unless--

 

Would Genji order him to stay indefinitely?

 

Hanzo’s jaw clenched at the thought.

 

When would Genji see that--

 

 _Would_ Genji see that--?

 

“So they accepted you despite everything.”

 

The small, almost fragile voice of the Vishkar agent pulled him back into the present. Her head was bent, her eyes open but unseeing as she walked on, her brow creased in thought.

 

Hanzo suppressed a snort.

 

Yes. Despite _everything._

 

They walked in silence for a few more minutes, Hanzo somewhat distractedly searching for threats while the Vishkar agent stared at the ground just before her feet as they continued south. Just as they reached a T-intersection with a road that cut east across the depression, the steps of Agent Pharah and the cowboy quickened to catch up with them.

 

“Can I get a word, Agent Shimada?” asked the cowboy cheerfully. Hanzo scrutinized his face for a moment, but could find no trace of strain, hidden or otherwise. Agent Pharah replaced him at the Vishkar agent’s side as the group turned eastbound to head back towards the homestead. The two men allowed them to outpace them for a few moments before the cowboy continued. “False alarm,” he explained quietly. “Looks like a deer was pickin’ her way under cover in such a way that could be mistaken as covert. Genji and Zen went out t’check the heat signature and found her without too much trouble.”

 

Hanzo nodded as he glanced at the Vishkar agent’s back--she had done well not to allow Overwatch’s suspicion visibly upset her. “I see.”

 

The cowboy nodded back. “So, since there’s nothin’ t’worry about, I guess we’ll head back home and get a well-deserved lunch.”

 

They made the rest of the trip in silence, and it weighed on Hanzo. There was a distinct difference in the Vishkar agent’s behavior. Where before she had seemed interested in everything around her, now she was withdrawn--it was obvious in her posture even from behind, her shoulders drawn forward, head bent, arm held stiffly at her side. Agent Pharah also seemed to note the change--she tried to engage her in some conversation, and looked back at Hanzo and the cowboy every time she failed, Hanzo especially. She even mouthed, _What did you say?_ at him at one point, but he could only shrug.

 

They returned to the homestead in short order. There was no hint of activity, nor of Agent D.Va’s MEKA--if it was indeed on the homestead, it must be hidden in one of the garages or in the barn. They walked up to the entrance of the western house when--

 

“I wish to speak with the former Shambali,” the Vishkar agent suddenly said.

 

“Uh,” said the cowboy, who had been about to follow her inside the house. “With Agent Zenyatta?”

 

“Yes, of course,” she said impatiently, but she immediately paled and thinned her lips. “If--if he is available.”

 

“Sure,” the cowboy said slowly. He poked his head inside the western house. “Hey, Mei, you mind holdin’ down the fort with ‘Reeha? I’ll send Song t’come help you guys out.”

 

“Okay!” came the faint response, and Hanzo heard a further, “Did you have fun?” before Agent Pharah followed the Vishkar agent inside and shut the door behind her with a quizzical parting look.

 

The cowboy stared after them for a moment before turning to Hanzo. “What happened?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “She knew of my former leadership of the Shimada-gumi,” he said icily. “She apparently assumed that I bribed Overwatch with former Shimada resources to overlook it.”

 

“Really now?” said the cowboy, a look of great contemplation on his face. “That’s the first she’s mentioned you besides claiming that she doesn’ know how her Sombra Collective contact tracked you down. I’d assume that’d be where she found out about you--didn’ think she’d be that curious about it, though.”

 

“Nor I,” said Hanzo, feeling sour.

 

“We-e-e-e-ell,” drawled the cowboy, stroking his beard. “I guess we better go grab Zenyatta, but he and Genji said they were gonna stop and see the cats on the way back. I think I’d like t’--” he stopped short and shot a worried look at Hanzo. “You, uh--you good t’go with me t’meet ‘em? Or do you wanna stay behind and I’ll take--uh--I guess--” He looked indecisive, and Hanzo sighed internally before he spoke.

 

“I can accompany you.”

 

“Alright, okay,” said the cowboy hesitantly. “It’s just, I want ‘Reeha t’stay cuz I want her observin’, and I want Song here with her MEKA, and I want Mei here with her ice wall in case they gotta barricade themselves in is all. And I, uh--I wanna walk back with Zen at least, see if he knows why she singled him out after talkin’ with ya. She hasn’ really mentioned him, either.”

 

“Very well,” said Hanzo despite his sinking heart. It would be awkward walking with his brother and the Omnic monk at the same time, but something of the sort was likely inevitable.

 

But it increasingly weighed on him as they set out after the cowboy spoke briefly with Agent D.Va on his comm, ignoring the exaggerated sighs she threw him over the line. Perhaps it was the long walk--or the mounting exhaustion that had only been partially rectified the night before--but Hanzo’s feet were dragging more than he expected--or wanted.

 

The cowboy tried to start a conversation much as Agent Pharah had with the Vishkar agent, but he met with slightly greater success if only because Hanzo would rather focus on just about anything but their destination.

 

“So she still came even though she knew she’d be puttin’ herself in your hands,” he mused thoughtfully. “Awful brave of her.”

 

“Indeed,” said Hanzo flatly. Thinking back on their conversation without the fear of an ambush or some other attack, he could appreciate just how much of a chance the Vishkar agent had taken--it was astonishing, really. It was hard to imagine what might have pushed her to trust so much in not only a hidden, illegal Overwatch, but in the Sombra Collective that had led her here.

 

If she was sincere, of course.

 

“Good thing she didn’ know about me ‘til she got here,” said the cowboy, casting Hanzo a sly look. “What do you think her limit on gangsters is?”

 

Hanzo refrained from rolling his eyes.

 

“Gotta be more than two, I reckon, since she didn’ turn tail when I got here,” he continued. “Three, if she knows about Genji, but she ain’ said nothin’ about him. I wonder what she considers Lucio t’be--he’s got enough ex-gangsters under his command t’get a lotta people callin’ him a rising crimelord.”

 

Hanzo could _not_ refrain an eyeroll at that. He tried to keep it under wraps, but the way the cowboy’s words seemed to accelerate to almost rambling--he might not have been successful.

 

“Don’ gotta ask Luz what _he_ thinks, that’s for sure. He’s keepin’ almost as close an eye on us as Athena, what with all his messages and calls. If she does try something, I dunno who will come rescue us first--the rest of Overwatch, a contingent of _cariocas,_ or both.”

 

He continued in this vein even as Hanzo’s responses became even more subdued--the line of trees sheltering the cat colony were in sight, with the barn itself peeking through the thick, bare branches. He could not prevent himself from looking for two silvery figures--or the tension from spreading across his shoulders and down his back.

 

He need not have bothered. The cowboy fell silent at last as he subtly turned them towards one end of the barn, as though he knew already where to go. As they crossed the sunbleached fence and rounded the end of the barn among the abandoned and rusting farm equipment, Hanzo spotted the pair at last.

 

They were facing away from the approaching pair, sitting in identical crosslegged poses, though Genji was a few inches below his floating “master”. The Omnic monk’s hands were in open lotus poses, while one of Genji’s hands was visible on his knee, the other hidden but likely folded in some mudra if his pose was any indication.

 

They were sitting in the middle of a loose ring of cats.

 

Hanzo had never seen so many at once--at least a third of the colony seemed to be in an area around fifteen meters across, enough that not a single individual sat alone, but rather in pairs and groups lounging on the ground, atop abandoned equipment, on the fence, and some in the empty windows of the barn itself.

 

“Whoowee,” breathed the cowboy. “That’s a sight. D’ya think they’ll let--”

 

They would not. As soon as the cowboy headed for a trio of cats off to their left, they sprang to their feet and retreated, disappearing into the barn. The presence of the cowboy apparently greatly overpowered whatever attraction had brought them there.

 

“Whoops,” he chuckled low low in his throat, watching their tails disappear. “Guess not.” He looked around and retreated a little. “I dunno if I wanna interrupt--at least, not before I grab a couple of photos. Agent Shimada, y’mind--?”

 

Hanzo wordlessly offered his hand and took the cowboy’s comm, opening the camera app with no comment. He tried to present as neutral a reaction as possible to the cowboy posing in the foreground of each picture, partially to give scale, partially to pretend to pet several of the cats, all while avoiding making the least amount of noise--his spurs were silent throughout, though as far as Hanzo could tell he was not stepping particularly carefully.

 

After about twenty pictures, the cowboy gestured at the corner of the barn and the pair discreetly retreated out of sight--or almost. The cowboy peeked around it, keeping an eye on the tableau.

 

“I’d heard this was one of Zen’s superpowers,” he whispered. “He just sits down someplace and soon a zoo moves in.”

 

Hanzo hummed as he handed the comm back. He was merely relieved to be out of sight. If there was any indication of his mood, it was the fact that the cats gathering in such numbers felt like something of a betrayal. It was irrational and petulant, but he had spotted several members of his welcoming committee among the crowd, and their presence stung in a way that was suspiciously envious.

 

“Too bad none of ‘em like t’be touched, though,” mourned the cowboy, still looking around the corner. “‘Slike havin’ a buffet spread out, but it’s all poisoned.”

 

That was an odd metaphor--but such was Hanzo’s life that he had actually seen just that. Perhaps the cowboy had as well, given his previous occupations.

 

“Yes,” he said, batting away that literally bitter memory. “Very few of them have ever allowed physical contact. None are likely to in the time we are here.”

 

“You still so sure, after seeing _that?”_ said the cowboy with a small smile.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “Yes.”

 

_“Yow-ow-ow-ow-ow-owl!”_

 

Hanzo whipped his head around, his jaw dropping slightly. He scanned the area, looking for the source of the affronted noise--and it popped out of the window of a nearby shed, one that had a single large missing window but otherwise was little damaged. Out of that window popped a medium-sized calico cat, her short but fluffy fur mottled and splattered with black, brown, tan, and white splotches, with a tan line splitting her face in half. She perched on the window for a split second, sniffing at the wind and looking around, but she zeroed in on Hanzo quite quickly. Giving another great yowling cry, she leapt to the ground and came at him in a dead run, almost screaming the entire way.

 

Hanzo would only watch, bemused, as she almost rammed into his legs, rubbing herself against them as she nearly caterwauled, sounding equal parts enraged and enthralled.

 

“Sakura,” he managed to say, half out of pure astonishment and half to explain the scene to a very surprised, almost betrayed-looking cowboy.

 

“Oh, she’s even got a name?” he asked sardonically. He bent over and offered his flesh hand to Sakura, but she gave it only a cursory sniff before she returned all her attention to Hanzo, who knew by the heat rushing across his face that something awful was happening to his face, but he was powerless to stop it.

 

“I believed her dead,” he managed to work past his constricted throat.

 

“Doesn’ look like it,” said the cowboy, and he was obviously losing an intense battle to keep from grinning as he watched Sakura jump to her hind legs and place her front paws on Hanzo’s _hakama,_ still yowling. That was the principal difference between her and a domestic cat--she had no concept of which noises were acceptable. Otherwise, her affection put many pampered housecats to shame. She began to knead his _hakama_ with razor sharp claws, rubbing her head against his leg, begging to be petted.

 

“Don’ leave her hangin’,” admonished the cowboy.

 

With utmost reluctance, Hanzo reached down, and Sakura took possession of his hand, rubbing her mouth, ears, forehead, cheeks--everything against it, catching up his uncooperative fingertips and doing the work for him.

 

The cowboy had given up hiding his grin.

 

“She has never been this affectionate,” blurted Hanzo, feeling oddly defensive.

 

“Oh yeah?” hummed the cowboy.

 

“No. She--she has always been much friendlier than the others, but never this much.”

 

“That so?”

 

“Since I believed she had been taken,” said Hanzo, feeling something akin to panic beginning to set in and trying to keep it at bay, “I did not anticipate any cat allowing contact.”

 

“I hear ya.”

 

The feeling akin to panic was rapidly becoming akin to despair.

 

Suddenly Sakura pushed herself off Hanzo and ran off--but only a few paces before she stopped, looked back, yowled, and ran back, turning sharply just before she came back. She repeated the motion two, three, four times, while both men watched in befuddlement, before the cowboy snapped his metal fingers with their characteristic _ping._ “‘Follow me.’ She wants us--you--us?--t’follow her. C’mon, she’s headin’ back t’that shed.”

 

The cowboy cautiously stepped after her, and while Sakura did not explicitly object, she did make sure that Hanzo also took a hesitant step before she continued to feint towards the shed, making sure both men were always only just behind before continuing on. She jumped up on the empty windowsill as soon as she reached it, finally silent except for a motor-like purring, so low and deep that Hanzo could nearly feel it in his chest. She jumped down inside as soon as the two men could peek inside--just in time to see her meow quietly at a single orange-furred kitten with beady black eyes and short stubby legs.

 

“Aha,” whispered the cowboy, and the comm had reappeared in his hands, angled to get the best view. “Looks like she was occupied when you arrived.”

 

Sakura rather huffily scooped up the kitten by the scruff and, glancing at the window to make sure both men were watching, carefully tucked it behind a large plastic panel leaning against the wall. Several quiet meeping meows greeted her, revealing the presence of several more kittens.

 

The cowboy was all smiles as he continued to record. “My oh my, Miss Sakura. Sounds like you got your hands full.”

 

She meowed up at them as she sat at the entrance of her small nest, looking quite satisfied with herself.

 

“You think she needs help feedin’ ‘em?” asked the cowboy as he tapped on the comm screen, zooming in. “Is that why she led us to ‘em?”

 

Hanzo shook his head, still recovering from the shock of both finding Sakura alive and well and his sudden loss of dignity--he could only be thankful Agent D.Va had not witnessed the scene. “The rest of the colony is likely assisting her. The kitten seems about two weeks old--if she was not receiving assistance, they would have long since perished,” he explained, trying not to feel his own face to ascertain if the flushed red had disappeared yet.

 

The cowboy nodded vigorously as another kitten tried squeeze their way past Sakura--she swished her tail in mild agitation and nudged them back. “I didn’ know they helped each other out like that.”

 

“Cats require solitude, but they are not solitary animals,” said Hanzo with a small shrug.

 

“Just like us.”

 

Hanzo glanced sharply at the cowboy, but he was looking at Sakura with soft eyes and a small smile.

 

“Hanzo? McCree?”

 

In a flash, Hanzo straightened and turned. “Genji,” he said calmly--or as calmly as he could manage. His brother had approached completely soundlessly, and Sakura’s unexpected appearance and his consequent mortification in front of the cowboy had completely destroyed whatever preparation he had managed during the walk here.

 

So he did not sound very calm at all.

 

He could not help but purse his lips when it became obvious Genji had noted it. His shoulders noticeably drooped and he took a half-step back. “Excuse me,” he murmured, his head dropping forward a little bit. “Am I interrupting something?”

 

“Naw,” said the cowboy--he had not turned around. He had not even jumped at Genji’s sudden appearance--but why should he? He was likely used to it. “Lookie here, Genji--kittens!”

 

“Oh?” Genji moved closely, trying to see through the window. Hanzo hastily moved back, gesturing mutely at the space he vacated. “Thank you, brother,” said Genji softly.

 

Hanzo shook his head. “It is nothing.”

 

Genji sighed--there was no sound, but Hanzo almost felt hyperaware--he could see his shoulders rise and fall. But he said nothing more as he joined the cowboy at the window.

 

“They’re behind that panel--oop, doesn’ sound like Mama Cat wants just anyone t’see ‘em,” said the cowboy as Sakura emitted a loud hiss and growl that even Hanzo could hear.

 

“No,” agreed Genji with a shrug. He raised his hands placatingly and bowed his head. “My apologies. I will take my leave.” He stepped back and turned around, and Hanzo managed not to visibly stiffen when that flattened V of a visor locked on him. “Will they be all right?”

 

Hanzo frowned a little. “It is difficult to say. Winter may arrive at any time--if it comes sooner rather than later, one of the other cats may assist her in keeping them warm. If they do not--”

 

“Better check with Mei, then,” said the cowboy as he pocketed his comm at last and turned around. “Even if her forecasts are only good for two weeks.”

 

“We had better get back to master--he’s waiting for you, McCree,” said Genji--and after a short pause, he asked, “Do you--is it alright if you walk back with him? Me and Hanzo--we need to talk.”

 

Hanzo _did_ stiffen at those words. He could not help it in the slightest--nor could he help the sharp look he gave his brother. He was glad Genji was looking at the cowboy, but that meant the cowboy saw it instead.

 

He looked from one brother to the other, obviously concerned. “Well, uh--that sound okay to you, Agent Shimada?”

 

Hanzo clenched his jaw and nodded, not trusting his voice in the slightest.

 

“O-okay, then,” said the cowboy, voice full of doubt.

 

They walked back around the corner, revealing a large break in the circle of cats where Genji must have passed through. The Omnic monk still hovered in place, but his head was no longer bowed, and he turned around in mid-air at the sound of the mysteriously-returned jingle of the cowboy’s boots. “I have been summoned,” he said with a small chuckle.

 

“Ayup--don’ know why exactly, but after our little walkabout she wanted t’see you immediately. Most demandin’ I’ve seen her been,” said the cowboy, still glancing at Genji and Hanzo.

 

The Omnic monk hummed. “How interesting. What could it mean?”

 

The cowboy shrugged. “Let’s go find out--I’ll fill you in about a couple of things that happened while we were out. Uh--Genji and Agent Shimada are stayin’ here, though.”

 

“Yes,” said the Omnic monk smoothly as he rose up and dropped his feet to the ground. “Out of earshot, even if there is yelling.”

 

Hanzo fought to keep a scowl from warping his lips--and Genji did not seem to like the implication either. “Master--” he said quietly.

 

The monk strode forward and and placed a hand on Genji’s shoulder. “Be well, my student--no matter what you may hear.” He nodded at Hanzo and began to walk away, hands folded behind his back and the tattered ends of his camo pants swishing over his squared feet.

 

The cowboy looked torn, glancing between the rapidly departing Omnic monk and the two brothers. “Well, uh--call if you need anything,” he said, almost as if he wanted to say something, even if it was an empty platitude. Neither brother responded--only two identical short, curt nods. The cowboy bit his bottom lip, but turned without another word.

 

Hanzo watched him go with narrowed eyes. Would being alone with Genji and so far from the other agents finally push the cowboy to end his act? Or would he find some way to monitor them from a distance?

 

“Sit with me, brother,” said Genji, and the softness of his voice did not disguise the order behind it.

 

Hanzo obeyed, mirroring his brother as he moved to the spot the Omnic monk had been--a thick mat of dead grass covered the ground, providing some protection from the dirt underneath. Genji sat crosslegged on Hanzo’s left. Hanzo sat in _seiza_ to Genji’s right. Both brothers looked straight ahead--as far as Hanzo knew, of course. Genji could be looking at him sidelong or out of the corner of his eye or somesuch. His helmet betrayed nothing. But Hanzo felt he could see small signs of tension under the metallic carapace--Genji’s shoulders were drawn together, and his back was ramrod straight.

 

He was even fidgeting with his hands on his knees, he saw with a sharp pang of recognition. Like he once had on the rare occasion his brother was taking something seriously, like earning the presence of his dragon or awaiting news on the fate of their parents.

 

Hanzo felt outright dread began to swirl around in the pit of his stomach.

 

“Do you have an answer to the question I thought you could not hear?”

 

Genji never did possess subtlety.

 

And at the moment, neither did Hanzo.

 

“No.”

 

Genji stirred at the one-word answer, but Hanzo could not think of how to avoid it. It was simply true.

 

Silence reigned for a long while--at first Hanzo could not tell if it was seconds or minutes, but the time definitely dragged on into minutes as Genji said nothing and did nothing but sit and stare straight ahead.

 

The clouds drifted by overhead with only bare pinpricks of light infrequently allowed through, and not a single sunbeam fell on or around the brothers. A breeze wafted by, stirring the dead leaves and grass but not nearly strong enough to rustle the dead twigs and branches of the trees before them.

 

One by one, the cats surrounding them lost interest in the living statues before them. They got up, stretched indulgently, and padded away, disappearing past the trees into the brush or into the barn or some other place.

 

And still Genji was silent.

 

It was almost spooky. It was certainly out of character--but Hanzo was in no real position to know. Genji had apparently spent many years in silence.

 

“I’m trying,” Genji said at last, slowly, carefully, sounding as though he was tiptoeing through a minefield, “to find a way to say what I want to say, without--without you taking it as an order. But it’s hard, brother. I have no one but myself to blame, but I didn’t think--I didn’t know you’d--” He paused, then grunted, annoyed.

 

Hanzo said nothing and did nothing.

 

“Hanzo--look at me.”

 

Hanzo willed his face to remain under control, to not so much as twitch--and it failed him. As he turned to face the blacked green visor, he could not help the flattening of his lips, the twitch in his eye as his brother stared at him--as the visor he had condemned his brother to live in stared at him.

 

“I--” Genji’s voice was quiet, and the sentence abortive--pained. He turned away, twisting his torso as he sat on the ground and tipping his head forward. His shoulders rose and fell in time with three deep breaths, loud and deep enough to be heard through the visor--and then--

 

“You look at me like you once looked at Mother and Father.”

 

Then, after a short pause.

 

“Like you used to look at the elders.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “It displeases you to receive the same respect and deference?” he asked quietly.

 

“Is that what you call it?” asked Genji, his voice low and rough. “Do you really think the same of them as you do of me?”

 

Hanzo felt a stab of anger. “As a superior?” he asked, but he came dangerously close to spitting out the words.

 

“As--as a--” fumbled Genji, gesturing wildly for a moment with one hand before falling silent--but only for a few moments. “You--you’ve been working well. With the others.” Hanzo narrowed his eyes slightly at the change of subject. “I know it’s been difficult for you, more than I imagined, but--but people are getting used to you, getting to know you. D.Va’s been asking about you, trying to--to understand better what happened. And McCree--”

 

Genji paused for a long moment.

 

“You and he--even after everything that’s happened, you and he’ve managed to work together. He even admires how much you set aside your grievances for the sake of the mission, before and after he pulled his head out of his ass.

 

“But with me--you’re not even trying, Hanzo. You do everything you can to avoid me, and--and every time you look at me--”

 

Genji took a deep breath.

 

“Are you happy that I’m alive, Hanzo?” he asked, his voice quavering _just_ enough for Hanzo to hear it.

 

Hanzo could not move for several long, long seconds.

 

His anger was that paralyzing.

 

“Am I happy? Am I _happy?”_

 

Now he _was_ spitting the words--the same as he would bitter poison.

 

 _“You_ of all people ask after my _happiness?”_ His anger almost instantly manifested itself physically--circles and spots appeared in his vision, and the blood clashed in his head, reddening his face with fury even as he felt faint.

 

“You _imbecile!”_

 

He rose to his feet and almost flailed his arms, gesticulating wildly as he shouted.

 

“Where is your pride? Where is your _fury?_ I saw _both_ not long ago! That night after you cut through my pathetic excuses and proclaimed the futility of my actions, _you had me right where I belonged,_ on my knees with your sword pressed against my throat! _And you threw it away!”_

 

He was trembling now and could not even begin to disguise it. Genji remained seated, crosslegged on the ground, unmoving, unresponsive.

 

“You came all that way--you risked so much--and for _nothing!”_ Hanzo shouted, losing all control. _“Nothing!_ You threw away the perfect chance to avenge yourself for _nothing!”_

 

“That was not my purpose,” said Genji, voice almost inaudible.

 

“Ah, yes, your purpose was _forgiveness,”_ sneered Hanzo. “That is why you approached me rationally, coolly, somewhere where I was not surrounded on all sides by enemies. When I accused you of being an assassin, you did not deny it. When I attacked you, you struck _back._ All of these, clear signs of forgiveness!

 

“No. You had a purpose other than _forgiveness,_ Genji.”

 

Genji reeled back--only a centimeter or two, hardly enough to be seen, but Hanzo’s lips curled at the sight.

 

“You wanted to make it plain who was the better fighter,” he hissed, finally able to lower his voice. “You wanted to _make sure_ I was shamed and defeated, by _you._ You wanted to see the dragons turned on me, to see me at my most powerful and still wanting, as I have been all my life. You wanted to make sure that _I_ knew I could never touch you again, could never _harm_ you again. You did not reveal yourself or your _supposed_ purpose until that was clear, little brother. Until you _knew_ that _I_ knew who was the most powerful bro--no, the most powerful _Shimada.”_

 

Hanzo glared down at Genji, who sat frozen on the ground--frozen, but for a tremble in his hands and fingers that matched Hanzo’s own tremors, even as he balled his hands into fists in a futile effort to still them.

 

“But you balked at the last moment,” he said, almost in a whisper, almost too quiet to hear. “Through the influence of some rambling Omnics high on the mountaintops where you were addled by cold and oxygen deprivation, you allowed your murderer, your mutilator, your _enemy_ to live at the very last moment. And it was the very last moment, was it not?”

 

“No,” Genji rasped. “I--I never meant--”

 

Hanzo scowled at him before he drew himself up to his full height, no longer looking at his brother. Instead, he stared sightlessly across the broken and rusty heaps as he thought back to that warm May night under a canopy of brilliant cherry blossoms under the silvery full moon. “That night,” he said quietly, “you told me that honor resides in one’s actions.” He looked down at Genji with a sardonic look. “Would you--or perhaps your Omnic master--agree that truth does as well?”

 

“I spared you,” whispered Genji. “I forgave you.”

 

“A last minute mistake that you will rectify when your vision clears,” said Hanzo heavily, “and you once again see me with your sword pressed against my throat. When the time comes, brother--do not hesitate. My fate is written in blood, and _you_ shall be the one to seal it.”

 

As soon as the words left his mouth, Hanzo knew the conversation was over.

 

He spun on his heel and walked away in no particular direction except away from Genji.

 

Genji also knew that there was no more to say.

 

He did not call Hanzo back or try to follow or any such thing. He merely sat stockstill, his dark green visor boring into Hanzo’s back with an almost physical intensity until Hanzo disappeared beyond the trees surrounding the barn and into the feral fields beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long meandering chapter, with lots of opposing tones. Hopefully it's not too much of a hodgepodge. The next chapter will be much more concise, I promise.
> 
> I am writing this in Taiwan! I have successfully made the trip with little incident, and I'm excitedly and nervously awaiting my first day of training tomorrow! Afterdrop will continue to be a priority, but I cannot guarantee that I won't struggle a little with adjusting to this new job in a new country after a year and a half of unemployment. I hope you will be patient with me as you have always been!
> 
> And I would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who donated to my Ko-fi before I left! Your support has been immense and greatly reduced the stress both before and after I left. I am incredibly grateful! Thank you thank you thank you!
> 
> Finally, more fanart by more fantastic, talented artists!!!
> 
> Hanzo's piano playing appears to have struck a chord! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Both [Freebooter4Ever](http://freebooter4ever.tumblr.com) and [LadyNina](https://ladyninadraws.tumblr.com) drew [Hanzo playing](http://freebooter4ever.tumblr.com/post/171940382369/claroquequiza-please-say-the-newest-chapter-of) some [sweet music](https://ladyninadraws.tumblr.com/post/171979008636/hanzo-playing-the-piano-afterdrop-by) with incredible speed! I didn't picture it as beautifully in my mind as they recreated it!! Thank you so much!!
> 
> Next, [DoomfistMyAsshole](https://doomfistmyasshole.tumblr.com) drew something that, uh--[might eventually show up in the text.](https://doomfistmyasshole.tumblr.com/post/172191840544/sorta-inspired-by-that-scene-in-afterdrop-great) It's in the story notes now, at least. :3c
> 
> And last, [Metmarfil](http://metmarfil.tumblr.com) drew these beautiful depictions of [Hanzo's wardrobe in various chapters](http://metmarfil.tumblr.com/post/172264878145)\--I especially love his stylish Inner Ring outfits!!--as well as [Hanzo flirting with a certain street vendor](http://metmarfil.tumblr.com/post/172367546990). Hankata rides eternal!
> 
> Thank you all so much!!! These are all incredible!!!
> 
>  **[[EDIT: JUNE 15, 2018]]:** Today is two full months since the last update, so if you aren't following my Tumblr, here's why: the move to Taiwan has been going very well! I'm out of training and teaching classes, which has been an exhausting challenge, but one that has been very fulfilling!
> 
> Unfortunately, one major reason it was exhausting is because I got bronchitis one week after I got here! It was--very bad timing, LOOOL, but it probably happened from a combo of the change in climate and the exposure to many many children. So I haven't had a lot of energy for writing, for which I apologize! I am over the vast majority of the symptoms now, but I still have a bit of a lack of energy, which is the main reason for the delay.
> 
> But I am well on my way into the next chapter, even if it's going slow! I have 13,000 words written, and I am adding more almost every day!
> 
> I publish excerpts every day that I write on my tumblr, [ClaroQueQuiza](https://claroquequiza.tumblr.com/), if you'd like updates! Otherwise, rest assured that I am trying my best to get the next chapter out as soon as possible! Thank you for all your kind words these last two months, I appreciate it!!!


	20. You'd Be Wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY
> 
> Let me just put a note here at the start to apologize profusely for how long this took--almost three months! I never intended to leave you all on that cliffhanger for so long. I am sorry.
> 
> The main reason, of course, was the move to Taiwan. It has gone well, all things considered, and I am settling in nicely! But unfortunately, about a week after I landed, I caught a nasty case of bronchitis that lasted six or seven weeks while I was going through training and the steep learning curve of my first few classes--so I couldn't write.
> 
> After that, this chapter just--took a long time.
> 
> So once again, I apologize--I will do my utmost not to let this happen again! _Afterdrop_ remains one of my top priorities--despite the unplanned hiatus, it's not going anywhere!
> 
> Now, on with the show!!!

It took well over a kilometer before Hanzo could be bothered to pay attention to where he was going.

 

He was so wrapped up in adrenaline and rage--and growing regret--that he did not clearly remember the journey, nor could he say for certain when he decided on his destination.

 

But the reasoning behind his unconscious, unthinking decision became clear when he noticed at last where he was headed.

 

His next step was ever-so-slightly hesitant.

 

The smooth movement of scooping his comm out of his pocket and carelessly dropping it to one side was not.

 

He continued on, walking a line as straight as the terrain, dormant vegetation, and occasional fence allowed. His unconscious seemed to have directed his feet on a similarly direct course--he was already halfway there.

 

His arrows rustled slightly in his quiver and the yellow and brown undergrowth crunched under his feet, but otherwise the scene was dead silent. The patchy clouds continued to race past overhead, but in the depression there was no breeze to stir a single leaf or stalk. That was left to Hanzo alone.

 

Soon he had almost crossed the depression, leaving the trees surrounding the colony far behind, tiny and toylike. Before him, a spur off the surrounding mountains splayed out directly in front of him. It was crowned in younger, lower firs and cedars that were packed much closer together than the old growth further up the slopes, their branches touching and intertwined with each other, almost like a hedge rather than a forest.

 

But it was not enough of a hedge to completely bar passage; Hanzo marched forward and pushed straight through. It was not without effort--Hanzo was soon sweating as he batted the thicker, springier branches out of his way, leaving a thin but growing layer of sap on his hands and arms in the process, but he was used to battling through this grove in the middle of winter. Not being waist-deep in a snowdrift while yet more snow was shaken off the heavily laden branches and boughs made this much easier in comparison.

 

And he would not have to dig out the shack either.

 

The trees abruptly opened up a small amount, revealing the barest hint of a trail that wound between them, though their limbs overshadowed it so much that it was almost more truthful to say it ran under them. This, too, was a bonus from the season--in winter the trail was under at least a meter of snow, and Hanzo had to rely partially on landmark trees and partially on luck to lead him to where he was going--the shack was quite easy to overlook.

 

But not today. Today, the trail led him straight to a tiny clearing containing a single tiny shed, built low to the ground as if it was huddling in fear of the surrounding trees. It was made of roughly cut boards that were nevertheless fitted quite sturdily together--Hanzo was rather proud of the workmanship. He had done a lot of research and a fair bit of practice on various roofs and walls in the homestead before embarking on this project, and it had paid off quite handsomely. The shed showed little wear and tear from the elements.

 

Hanzo went straight  to the squat door on one side and unfastened the simple yet robust latch, allowing the door to squeak open. The rusty hinges shrieked at the motion, but the sound died almost immediately among the encroaching branches of the surrounding grove. He stood off to one side for a moment to allow any uninvited animal guests to present themselves, but none appeared. He stepped inside, blinking in the dimness, and went directly to the trapdoor laid into the simple wood floor.

 

He tugged open the heavy steel to reveal a square pit lined with brick. The bricks and trapdoor had been pillaged from the homesteads and farms of the depression--but the small grouping of glass and plastic bottles clustered in the bottom of the pit were clearly not.

 

Hanzo laid Storm Bow and his quiver off to one side, reached down, extending his arm almost to its full length, and picked up a two-liter glass bottle of baijiu and shook it slightly, watching for any hint of turbidity or leakage, but he found none. Nor was there any evidence of the same in the soju, the vodka, or the grain alcohol. It was purely out of habit--there was little danger of any of them spoiling in the few months since last April when Hanzo restocked this place, and even less danger of them freezing during the warm weather. It would be virtually impossible for the grain alcohol to freeze in a Hokkaido winter anyway, but temperatures were sometimes low enough for the rest of the liquor to flirt with it, hence the brick-lined pit set into the insulating ground.

 

The distant, isolated location was a deliberate choice on Hanzo’s part to keep alcohol nearby but unavailable during the dark, dark nights when all Hanzo could do was lie in some random room in the houses or garages or barn and stare at the ceiling. Such nights mixed with alcohol were--dangerous, to say the least. It was somewhat of a marvel that Hanzo survived his first winter here, but he had thoroughly learned the lesson: alcohol was only available in wintertime if he had the will and the energy to battle his way to this spot.

 

He struggled a bit with the seal on the baijiu, the plastic sticking stubbornly to the sap on his fingers, but he broke it at last and tipped the whole heavy bottle back. As he took the first burning swallows, he wondered what he would have done if his outburst had occurred in winter, if this whole Overwatch and Vishkar and Genji debacle had occurred during the winter months. Would he have been able to force his way through three kilometers of snowdrifts and snowladen thickets afterwards?

 

He thought back to the image of Genji, sitting motionless on the ground amid the spots and flashes that had colored his lightheaded vision as he screamed and ranted at him like a deranged, murderous child.

 

Yes, he thought with two more swallows before the burn became too much. Yes, he thought as he gave great heaving coughs that nearly threw him forward into the pit--only to return the bottle to his lips when he caught his breath. Yes. He had torn himself open and shown a side of himself that was both desperate and vulnerable and utterly, _completely_ idiotic, a side ruled by thoughtless emotion, consumed by the wants of the present and heedless of the future.

 

A side that had failed to remember--

 

\--that back on that warm May night--

 

\--when Genji’s sword had been pressed against his throat--

 

\--Genji had only withdrawn his blade when Hanzo _asked_ for death.

 

Capricious, contrary Genji, who never followed an order, who so often wanted the opposite of what was asked of him the instant the request was made. If Hanzo had known who the silvery assailant was, if he had known his brother was behind the mask, he would have known to keep his mouth shut, known to simply close his eyes, breathe deep, and _wait._

 

Genji had shown his intentions. He would have gone through with it if Hanzo had not _asked_ for it.

 

But now he had committed the same mistake. He had called his brother an imbecile, and he _was,_ but Hanzo was by far the bigger fool. He had allowed his emotions to seize hold of his expectations and blab them out to the one person who could fulfill them--but who definitely would _not_ if he knew that was expected.

 

How many more months would it take for Genji to assert his right now?

 

How many _years_ would it take?

 

Would he ever--?

 

Hanzo would have come here even if a blizzard stood in his way.

 

He welcomed the burn now--the urge to cough was fading fast. His stomach twisted under the sudden onslaught of ethanol, but Hanzo did not yield to its protests.

 

The drunken fog slammed into him like a truck, and his limbs felt heavy, oh so heavy, in the same moment. He almost toppled into the pit again, but he managed to throw himself onto his side, grunting from the impact, still clutching the baijiu, cursing slightly when it sloshed around in its bottle and a good amount spilled onto the ground, releasing the stench of alcoholic vapors. He exhaled at the thought of how soon that would be all that he could taste or smell, but it did not matter.

 

He brought the bottle clumsily to his lips once more as he lay on his side, drinking only a thin line of liquor at the awkward angle, but it was enough. More than enough, an increasingly distant, sensible notion in the back of his mind observed, but it was easy to ignore in favor of the scalding heat working its way down his throat, bringing a promise of oblivion in its wake.

 

Hanzo blearily watched the wall opposite him--he had forgotten to close the door behind him in his haste to chase that sweet oblivion, so a tattered rectangle of diffuse light filtering through the needles and branches of the grove splashed across the rough wood, drifting slowly yet shockingly perceptibly through the fog of the alcohol--and it was very thick now, and so weighty in his fingers that he no longer had a grip on the bottle. It clattered to the ground, and Hanzo listened to a few weak glubs as some of it dribbled out, but he could not bring himself to care much--there would still be some left inside when he needed more.

 

He did need more, he realized after a few moments or minutes of staring at the rectangle of light on the wall, but after an abortive swipe at the bottle with fingers that were clumsy from alcohol and uncomfortably tacky with sap, he decided it could wait until he could be bothered to scrounge up enough coordination and willpower.

 

Which probably would not be for a while, he admitted to himself as he tried to move a leaden arm.

 

His eyelids refused to close beyond the occasional slow blink over his glassy eyes--oblivion was calling, but was just out of reach. It would only take a little more baijiu, just a little more, so from time to time he reached out for the bottle, but his arm only swatted at it ineffectively a few times before he gave up again.

 

If he could not have oblivion, he at least had the thick fog firmly settled in his mind, obscuring his thoughts, preventing him from dwelling _too_ much on his horrendous blunder. There was still a solid feeling of dread lying like a stone in the pit of his stomach, but now it sat under a pool of first fiery, then numbing alcohol, and though he could not entirely ignore it, it was easier to endure. Though, as time passed, his patience with it began to wear thin.

 

And it ran out just as the dimming sunlight was cut off by the approaching evening--night was coming.

 

His arms and legs began to obey him again, enough to push himself against a wall, heedless of the scrape of the unfinished grain of the boards. At this more favorable angle, he finally caught up the baijiu in his sticky fingers and raised it to his lips. He would not miss the mark of oblivion this time.

 

He was on his fifth swallow when he heard movement outside.

 

He let the bottle and his arm drop to his lap, wincing slightly as the glass thumped against his thigh, but he tried to listen intently.

 

Something was pushing its way through the foliage. Hanzo only had to listen for a few seconds to determine it was heading in this direction.

 

Two somethings, he amended as he struggled to his feet--tried to struggle to his feet and failed, getting only as far as his knees before the discoordination became far too much to deal with. He shuffled over to Storm Bow and unsteadily picked it up--but then the voices reached him.

 

“Alright, I see it, Athena. Uh-huh. For sure. McCree out.”

 

Hanzo felt his lips curl--but what had he expected? he furiously asked himself. Overwatch to simply watch him march into the foothills and leave him be?

 

He knew very well how frustratingly patient and proactive they were and that nothing as simple as throwing aside his comm would deter them.

 

Well. Now Overwatch would know exactly what an abandoned comm meant, would they not?

 

Hanzo scowled at the baijiu by the wall as though it were to blame, but his drunken anger was turning inward.

 

Imprudent. Foolish. Shortsighted.

 

He had not left any of his shortcomings behind with Genji, had he?

 

“Alright.” The voice of the cowboy was hushed but clear through the still-open door. “Whaddaya think?”

 

“Let’s go in together,” said Agent Mei thoughtfully, and Hanzo grimaced from mixed confusion and embarrassment. What was _she_ doing here? “Just in case he’s, um, in distress.”

 

“I’m not distressed,” he called out before he could stop himself--but the last thing he needed was two Overwatch agents approaching him on guard.

 

There was a beat of silence, then a small sigh, and the cowboy called back, “Agent Shimada? You okay?”

 

“Yeah,” he replied, and only then did his own slurred and imprecise speech register to himself. His scowl deepened, but there was nothing for it. “I’m fine. You can go back. I‘ll be back in a little while.”

 

It was pathetic, this attempt to head them off, and he was not surprised at all to hear the jingle of the cowboy’s boots approach rather than retreat. “Well, it’s good t’hear that you’re okay, but, uh--we gotta stick together outside the homestead, y’know. May we come in?”

 

From the sound of his voice and spurs, the cowboy was just outside the door. Hanzo shuffled around and patted down his hair and clothes, trying to present as put-together an appearance as possible despite it being utterly in vain. He glanced at the puddles of baijiu on the floor, but he would not be caught scrambling around mopping up spilt liquor with his sleeve--as he had caught Genji doing more than--

 

He tried to banish the sudden flood of memories and the sick, sullen feeling that accompanied them, but it was no use, and suddenly having two Overwatch agents to focus on was the lesser of two evils. “Yeah,” he sighed after he crawled to a wall, thudding his back against it and trying to sit without slouching. “Come, come.”

 

The cowboy stepped inside, dressed in his red cape and chaps and cowboy boots. He took off his hat as he entered, and the habitual movement suddenly irked Hanzo, and he blurted, “It’s only a shed.”

 

The cowboy paused for a split-second. “What’s that?” he asked, brow furrowed.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “There’s no need to--ah, it’s nothing.” He tried to wave away the cowboy’s question, but his hand only flopped slightly. “Where is Mei--Agent Mei?” he amended, frowning.

 

“Right here,” she said as she came inside. She was dressed in her cold weather fatigues, but with a giant backpack that seemed packed for an expedition. Hanzo caught a glance of Snowball’s LED eyes blinking at him over her shoulder, but they almost immediately shut off again. Her nose scrunched up for a moment as she took the scene in, making her glasses ride up slightly. It was a very cute image, but at the moment Hanzo only felt a stab of embarrassment--with all this baijiu splashed around, it must smell like a distillery in here.

 

“I’m sorry, Agent Mei,” he said as he abandoned all pretense of dignity and all but rolled halfway to one side, trying to get his legs under himself so he could stand. “Let’s go outside.”

 

“No,” she said decisively, and she took a couple quick steps and put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. He looked up at her, and she had quite the determined look. She gently but inexorably pushed him back against the wall, the push becoming a slight pull when he overdid it and began to slip to the other side. “No, we’re not going anywhere, not yet. Here, look at me.” He found her eyes, and she stared intently at him for a couple of seconds before she shook her head. “You’re pretty far gone,” she said with a sad smile. “We better wait a little while.”

 

Hanzo snorted. “There isn’t any reason for you to wait. Or to have come,” he said sourly.

 

A shadow passed over Agent Mei’s face, and she glanced behind her at the cowboy. He seemed to consider something for a split second. “Of course we had t’come, Agent Shimada,” he said gently. He looked over the trapdoor and the pit underneath. He smiled slightly before he grabbed the edge of the trapdoor and heaved it closed, trying to keep it from slamming.

 

Because Genji had sent them? Or because they believed he was running away again? Or both? It was a testament to Hanzo’s self-control that he did not blurt out the questions, but it was a close thing--it had been some time since he had been so very drunk in front of other people, and he was finding it difficult to hold his tongue.

 

But the cowboy surprised him.

 

“We got a new mission. It’s all hands on deck.”

 

Hanzo blinked and made a concerted effort to push back the fog in his mind. “What?”

 

The cowboy dusted his gloved hands off as he stood up from closing the trapdoor, looking straight at Hanzo. “Athena’s detected Vishkar tech within a hundred klicks of here,” he said. Hanzo stiffened. “We’re gettin’ ready t’move out.”

 

Hanzo tried to stand, but Agent Mei pushed him back down, surprisingly strong. “We’re not moving out right now,” she said with a rather stern glance at the cowboy. “Tomorrow. We’re moving out tomorrow.”

 

“But if Vishkar’s on the way--” protested Hanzo, struggling against her.

 

“They ain’. We found ‘em thanks t’Ms. Vaswani,” the cowboy said reassuringly, moving forward and putting his hand on Hanzo’s other shoulder. “Ease up a little, Agent Shimada. _We’re_ takin’ the fight to _them.”_

 

Hanzo shook his head, half to clear the fog from his mind, half out of sheer disbelief. “What? How did you find them?”

 

“Ms. Vaswani’s opened the floodgates,” explained the cowboy with a widening smile. “Turns out she was holdin’ back, but now she’s decided t’throw herself in with us. She wants t’team up.”

 

“She--wants to join Overwatch?” Hanzo said slowly, disbelievingly.

 

The cowboy huffed a short laugh. “Naw, just team up with us. There’ll be time to explain specifics later. Right now all you need t’know is that she gave us the means t’find ‘em without alertin’ ‘em to us. It’s time t’sober up--we got twelve hours t’get ready.”

 

Hanzo continued to shake his head. “They couldn’t possibly be here by coincidence,” he argued, though he gave up trying to shove against both agents’ hands. He tried to stare them down from the floor instead. “They have to know we’re here. Why else would they be here?””

 

The cowboy and Agent Mei exchanged looks, the cowboy with a bitten bottom lip, Agent Mei with eyes wide. The cowboy shrugged again and looked back at Hanzo. “The Omnium,” he said slowly, quietly. “Athena hasn’ finished triangulatin’ their position yet, but they’re within a hundred kilometers somewhere northwest of here.”

 

This was not the clarification Hanzo was seeking--it was only getting more confusing. “What would Vishkar want with the Omnium?” he demanded, trying to get them to see that it _had_ to be an attack, that the Vishkar agent had alerted her comrades to her position at last or that they had been watching this entire time.

 

“That’s a good question,” allowed the cowboy patiently. “Ms. Vaswani’d like t’know, too. As far as she knows, Vishkar ain’ interested in Omnica technology. So why’d there be Vishkar runnin’ around an Omnium?”

 

“Exactly!” snapped Hanzo, irked by the cowboy’s lack of suspicion--he had demonstrated so much towards Hanzo, even if lately he had been hiding it, that it was incredible that he had none whatsoever now. “If there’s nothing there to interest Vishkar--”

 

“--then maybe it ain’ official Vishkar.”

 

Hanzo froze, his mouth still open.

 

The cowboy looked over his expression and nodded. “Y’see now?”

 

“Talon,” Hanzo murmured, eyes narrowed.

 

“And if it is, then we might have a chance t’recover some of the stolen tech from the Satellite Campus,” said the cowboy, expression serious. “Maybe even find out why they stole it in the first place.”

 

Hanzo nodded slowly--understanding relieved a sort of pressure against the inside of his skull that he had not noticed until it was gone. Still--

 

“It could be Vishkar trying to draw us out,” he pointed out, and another wave of relief washed over him when the cowboy nodded easily.

 

“For sure,” he agreed, taking back his hand and folding his arms over his chest. “Ms. Vaswani’s been insistin’ on goin’,” he said with a small eyeroll, “but Winston, ‘Reeha, and I put our foot down. She’s stayin’ here with ‘Reeha, Tor, and Mei while the rest of us investigate. If this whole thing’s some kind of official Vishkar ploy, at least she won’ be around t’help them. It’s also t’protect her, o’ course.”

 

“Protect her?” Hanzo could not help but scowl at how slow he sounded--the baijiu he had been chugging just before the Overwatch agents appeared was hitting him now, and he had a feeling he would be understanding much more if he were not so inebriated.

 

“If she’s for real,” said the cowboy, lowering his voice as though letting him in on a conspiracy, “then it’ll be advantageous t’keep her under wraps for a while.”

 

Hanzo felt an inordinate amount of pride when he got the point even through the baijiu. “You’re plannin’ on usin’ her as a double agent.”

 

The cowboy’s eyes widened a little, as though surprised Hanzo had managed to connect the dots even in such a state, but he recovered quickly. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “She says she was gonna offer, and Winston was gonna ask even if she didn’, but yeah. Dependin’ on how tomorrow goes, she may become our contact in Vishkar.”

 

“For sure,” murmured Hanzo distractedly as he considered this new development.

 

Agent Mei let out a little snort, like stifled laughter. He looked up at her with a furrowed brow. “What?”

 

She looked like a deer caught in headlights. “U-uh--” she stammered. “Nothing, nothing.” She reddened under his unbelieving stare, and she looked away, muttering, _“Nǐ shì yīgè qíguài de jiǔguǐ.”_

 

 _“Nǐ bùbì lái kàn wǒ le.”_ he shot back.

 

She started and her face became nearly maroon. “S-sorry.”

 

He dropped his gaze and rolled his shoulders back. “It’s nothing,” he said, suddenly listless from the jarring reminder that there were witnesses of his drunkenness. “I’m sorry you’re seeing this, that’s all.”

 

He did not miss the glance between the two Overwatch agents--both surprised by his candid admission. Agent Mei seemed at a loss of what to do in the face of it, and the cowboy did not either. After a few moments, the cowboy sighed. “Well,” he said with another little shrug, “goin’ out and draggin’ back a drunk agent or five wasn’ exactly rare in the old days. Ol’Reyes dragged me out of more than one bar for a last minute mission. Needed hair of the dog somethin’ awful every time.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips at the thought of going on a mission while battling a hangover, as he was about to do.

 

But then the cowboy added, “You’re lucky we got Angie’s nanites. Woulda killed for ‘em back in the day.”

 

Hanzo froze for a moment. “What?”

 

“I said we brought some of Angie’s nanites along,” said the cowboy slowly and patiently. Hanzo relaxed again. “You gotta wait ‘til you’re a lil more sober because alcohol deactivates ‘em, but you won’ be gettin’ a hangover at least. Good news, huh?”

 

Hanzo scrunched his eyebrows together, trying to puzzle out why Dr. Ziegler would spend any time on a hangover cure--she had mentioned that alcoholism was prevalent in Overwatch, but to such a degree?

 

Then he mentally smacked himself. She had surely not set out to create a cure for seasickness, either--merely to treat symptoms associated with it. A hangover shared many similar characteristics.

 

So that removed one small problem.

 

He stubbornly tried to ignore the other, much bigger problems he would be facing, but it was a losing battle, especially as the cowboy and Agent Mei settled down to wait out Hanzo’s blood alcohol level. They both sat close by--they seemed intent on giving him some space but being at the ready to assist him if he needed anything.

 

Unfortunately, a growing need was forming in his bladder, unsurprisingly given how much of the baijiu he had drunk. He waited as long as he could before addressing it, giving as much time for his liver to work as possible in an attempt to be able to stand and walk without assistance.

 

The last thing he wanted was for either the cowboy or Agent Mei to escort him behind a tree.

 

Both Overwatch agents moved as one to support him when he could wait no longer and moved to stand. He shrugged off their outstretched hands as he resolutely if unsteadily got to his feet. “I’ll be back,” he said shortly as he made his way out into the darkness outside. The sun had set only a short time ago, but most of the wan twilight was blocked by the thick needles and branches all around, with only a small patch of dark purple and faded pink sky directly overhead.

 

He did indeed lose his balance while he relieved himself, but he grabbed a branch in time.

 

He managed to trip on the threshold on his way back inside, though.

 

“You okay?” asked Agent Mei, already on her feet and moving forward.

 

He waved her away as he wobbled back into equilibrium. “It’s fine, Agent Mei,” he said, aiming to sound reassuring but only managing to sound equal parts embarrassed and reproachful.

 

He had always been proud of how steady he was on his feet while drunk before he lost his legs--the skill had not extended to his prosthetics.

 

He returned to his spot and the two agents returned to theirs. Both of them had taken out their comms and were rather busily tapping away at the screens. Hanzo observed them out of the corner of his eye for a little while before he ventured a quiet, “Mission details?”

 

“Yeah,” said the cowboy distractedly. “Winston’s decided t’try and triangulate the Vishkar tech’s exact position tomorrow while we’re enroute t’keep from alertin’ them too early if they detect our probes. In the meantime Genji--” Both the cowboy and Agent Mei stiffened, but the cowboy recovered almost instantly, continuing with only the briefest of pauses. “--Zen, and Tor are loadin’ up the Orca.”

 

“I see,” said Hanzo, staring straight ahead.

 

There was silence for a few moments, then the cowboy, with utmost caution, said, “Genji and Zen will be reinforcin’ the Orca tonight with Tracer. We’ll meet up with ‘em tomorrow.”

 

“Very well.”

 

“And, uh--I wanted to ask permission to move most of your ammo t’the Orca, too, just t’save time.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips and grit his jaw--but it was a sensible idea. “Of course, Agent McCree. Do as you see fit.”

 

There was another heavy, expectant silence, as though the cowboy and Agent Mei were waiting for something, but Hanzo did and said nothing, and they both eventually returned to their comms.

 

Hanzo kept staring at the opposite wall, refusing to so much as glance at the trapdoor no matter how much he thirsted for the liquor hidden within. Having most of his arrows out of reach felt almost like losing feeling in a limb, but it was overshadowed by the departure of two of the homestead’s defenders.

 

It was foolish, utterly foolish, to weaken their defenses the very night they had discovered Vishkar or Talon was nearby. It was all due to his own foolishness and weakness. There was no one to blame for driving away Genji and the Omnic monk but himself.

 

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

A dull ache began to grow in the arches of his feet, and he scowled--of course the phantom pain would pick a time like _this._

 

They passed away two hours like that, with two Overwatch agents trying their best not to completely waste their time while they babysat a drunkard who could not keep his mouth shut, either to keep words in or liquor out. His mood got progressively blacker as he stewed in himself, his mistakes, and his phantom pain, and despite his best efforts it showed in the curt responses to the cowboy and Agent Mei’s occasional inquiries, mostly after how he was feeling but a few concerning the mission. They both showed immense patience with his behavior, considering who he was and why they were here as they asked him about the lay of the land surrounding the Hokkaido Omnium and whether he was familiar with the JSDF and UN forces monitoring the abandoned facility.

 

“I’ve had no reason to observe them,” he said with a glower directed at the wall. He was in a frustrating stage of his intoxication, where he was conscious and ashamed of his attitude, but largely unable to moderate it beyond addressing the blank wood across from him and hoping that lessened the abuse he was heaping on his caretakers.

 

Then he sat up slightly when a thought occurred to him. “How did Vishkar get past them?”

 

“Another good question,” said the cowboy with a small smile lit by the light of his comm.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “The Ainu,” he said, seizing on the notion and faintly grateful to have it as a distraction--and to have an opportunity to redress the cowboy for enduring him, “would likely know about the JSDF and UN’s movements. They’re extremely suspicious of them both.” His face crumpled slightly. “I don’t know how you’d find out what they know,” he admitted, slumping back against the wall.

 

The cowboy hummed for a moment, an oddly cheerful sound that echoed slightly in the small shack. Then, suddenly: “Would they tell _you?”_

 

Hanzo swung his head around. “What?”

 

“You said you sold that bear to the Ainu,” said the cowboy. “Have you had any more dealings with ‘em?”

 

“Several,” Hanzo conceded. “But I doubt they’d reveal anything to anyone they didn’t consider one of their own.”

 

The cowboy nodded. “Insular.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You willin’ t’give it a try, though?”

 

Hanzo opened his mouth to say he would fail--but his brain managed to break through the alcoholic fog and remind him that doing anything at this point was preferable to doing nothing while everyone around him was working, even if it was doomed to failure.

 

“Alright,” he simply said instead, and his tone improved at last from sulky to neutral.

 

“Here,” said the cowboy, and he withdrew Hanzo’s comm from his pocket and handed it over. Hanzo could not repress a grimace at the thought that among everything else, he had obligated the cowboy to literally clean up after him--he of all people should know that Hanzo would have recovered his comm himself.

 

He busied himself with looking up the information for Asai’s shop in Hirō--out of everyone in Ainu-Mosir that he semi-regularly had contact with, she was both the highest ranking and most nationalistic, and thus the most likely to have the information they required.

 

She was also the least likely to pass it on to him, but that hardly mattered--he was doing something.

 

He asked the cowboy if the connection would be untraceable and secure before placing the call, listening to it connect with three short tones before the longer ringing tones. He held it to his ear rather than use the earpiece--his movements still felt far too clumsy, and he would not struggle with something so simple when someone could see.

 

Asai answered before too long. _“He, kuani anakne henne konrusuy. Nisatta eani anakne e=ku.”_

 

“Who is annoying you?” asked Hanzo sardonically, switching to Ainu with a bit less effort than usual--alcohol loosened his tongue rather than tying it up.

 

“What--Ifukube-san? Is that you?” asked Asai, sounding almost flabbergasted. “Why do you sound drunk?”

 

Hanzo let the comm drop into his lap for a moment, drew in and let loose a large sigh, then lifted it back to his ear. “Because I am drunk.”

 

“Out in the middle of nowhere?” she snapped, voice rising. “How often does that happen?”

 

“Only when I am foolish,” he answered ruefully.

 

“And now you’ve fallen in a hole and broken your femur, hmm? Where are you? Will you last long enough for us to get to you or will you bleed to death first?”

 

Hanzo knitted his eyebrows together. “No,” he protested, “I am not injured.”

 

“You’d only be calling if you were dying,” she shot back.

 

He pursed his lips for a moment. “I have only recently acquired a satellite phone. I was simply unable to call before now.”

 

“Aha,” she said snidely. “Getting a little less confident in your old age, are you?”

 

Hanzo struggled not to snap back. He wondered in the back of his mind if she was deliberately goading him, but it was hard to tell. She was always--spirited.

 

“I have called to ask you something, Asai,” he said rather than answering. “I almost ran into an official-looking group of people outside of Shibe. I do not know who they were. Do you happen to know if the JSDF or the UN have been operating in that area?”

 

Asai was quiet for a few seconds. “In Shibe?” she asked, her voice low. He could hear paper rustling and computer keys clicking in the background. “When?”

 

“Two days ago,” he said, improvising. “They seemed to be encamped around the train station. There were a fair number of them, and they had some large pieces of equipment with them, but I do not know what they were.”

 

“Interesting,” Asai mumbled, clearly focused elsewhere. “I don’t think it was either of them. That’s further north than any of them have been before. Usually--usually they stick closer to Rumoi on the coast. They’re prepared to hightail it out of there if anything happens,” she explained with a snort, her voice becoming more present.

 

“Ah,” said Hanzo understandingly. “But they do not usually go north?”

 

“No. I’ve never heard of them going outside of the Ishkari-pet Plains since they tried to drive us back into the sea at Ni-mu-oro,” she said with an odd mixture of reminiscence and defiance.

 

“Then perhaps the people I saw are less than official. I will avoid them.”

 

“Yes, do that--‘less than official’ could mean anything. If they try anything, give me a call if you get desperate enough to tell me where you are,” she all but ordered.

 

“Of course,” he said placatingly. “Thank you, Asai.”

 

He ended the call and looked up to find both Overwatch agents staring at him.

 

“Was that--was that Ainu?” asked Agent Mei, eyes shining.

 

“Yes, of course,” said Hanzo, taken aback by their attention.

 

The cowboy laughed. “Sounds like it was a good use of your time,” he said, his eyes crinkled in amusement. “What you get?”

 

Hanzo relayed the information, marveling slightly at having gotten a comparatively large amount out of Asai--she must regard him more highly than he thought. He batted away the thought in favor of concentrating on the cowboy digesting and musing on the implications.

 

“Concentrated in Rumoi,” he said to himself, tapping away at his screen with his gloved fingers. “Don’ go north. Pretty wide berth for uninvited guests t’work with, ain’ it? Still--the JSDF and the UN would be watchin’ the Omnium itself, so maybe Vishkar and or Talon is set up somewhere nearby.”

 

“Or inside,” said Agent Mei suddenly.

 

The cowboy looked up with a quizzical look, but she was already saying, “If they have Vishkar tech--that could include teleporters, right?”

 

The cowboy’s expression hardened. “So they’d only need to get one small team of people in without anyone noticin’, then the Omnium itself would shield ‘em,” he said grimly. “Good call, Mei.”

 

She nodded in acknowledgement with a serious look that turned thoughtful. “If they got in with a small team without anyone noticing--you have a good chance of doing it, too.”

 

“Sure,” said the cowboy, his voice not losing its grim tone at all. They both returned to working on their comms. Hanzo, mood slightly improved, answered a few more questions in a more acceptable manner. That, along with another trip behind a tree with much better balance and coordination, convinced him it was time to return to the homestead--he had obligated Overwatch to prepare for a last minute mission without two of their agents for far too long already.

 

“Let’s go,” he announced, marching back into the shack and demonstrating his readiness by bending down to grab Storm Bow and his quiver. No one had to know that he almost pitched forward flat on his face--he recovered almost instantly. “You’re needed at the homestead.”

 

“We--okay, okay, slow down, Agent Shimada!” the cowboy called after him as he spun on his heel and trooped back outside. He did wait, just outside the door, but with more than a little impatience. He was still intoxicated, of course, and that meant the journey back was likely to be somewhat arduous, but he was eager to get it over with.

 

He could hear both agents move and shuffle around a little bit before they came out, both with powerful flashlights that threw red beams on the ground to preserve their nightvision. The cowboy dropped his hat on his head as he came out and closed the door behind him. He chuckled as he latched it and turned around, giving Hanzo an amused look. “I’ve got a hideyhole or two like this,” he said with a twisted smile as he rapped his knuckles on the wood. “Great minds, huh?”

 

Hanzo threw him a sour look. “I’m sure you spent your time far more productively in yours,” he replied bitterly.

 

The cowboy looked surprised. “Uh--you’d--you’d think so,” he said slowly, as if the words felt unnatural in his mouth. “But I usually had t’scurry off t’one after a job gone bad or when someone got a little too close t’baggin’ my bounty. Wasn’ usually in the best mindset, and so, uh. Got up t’much the same as you here.”

 

“But wasn’t that when you’d--” began Hanzo--and then he snapped his mouth shut when he remembered he was not supposed to know about that particular hobby. He had already almost revealed his knowledge of it before, but at least back then all he had done was snort at the cowboy’s attempt at being mysterious. Now, compromised as he was, he had come close to blathering everything he knew about the cowboy’s secret identities.

 

He was nowhere near sober. He would do well to keep that in mind.

 

Now the cowboy was staring at him suspiciously, eyes narrowed and black in the dim red light of the flashlights.

 

“--recover?” he tried to continue as naturally as possible. “I have no reason to be here. You, at least, were recovering from narrow escapes.”

 

It was an exceptionally weak misdirection, and Hanzo could not begin to determine if it was at all successful because Agent Mei broke in, capturing the cowboy’s attention before he could analyze his reaction--but her words and tone steamrolled over his little mistake in short order.

 

“Alcohol is no way to recover from anything,” she said quietly. Her eyes were downcast as though she was watching her own feet, and her voice was fragile.

 

Hanzo stiffened at the sudden serious atmosphere that swept through the air like a cold snap.

 

“I’m sorry that was all both of you had, but you know that, right?” Agent Mei looked up and stared first at Hanzo, then at McCree.

 

Neither man answered, and Agent Mei seemed to lose some of her resolve. “I--” she said slowly, her face falling. “I’m sorry. This isn’t really the time or the place, is it?”

 

The cowboy drew in a deep breath and let it out in a _whoosh._ “Can’ really say I know when the ‘right time’ is,” he admitted. “And you’re one hundred percent right, anyhow. From what Angie tells me, it’s known in the medical community as a ‘shitty coping mechanism’.” He paused for a moment. “It _was_ all I had for a long time,” he said quietly. “But not anymore.”

 

Hanzo stiffened. He did not miss the implication, driven home by the cowboy’s meaningful yet short glance.

 

He turned and strode forward, shoving aside the first thick branch. “Let’s go,” he muttered, leaving the two Overwatch agents to follow as best they could.

 

He should have known that, despite the cowboy’s playacting, he would still find ways to throw barbs, and that they would be all the sharper for their infrequency. He should have expected it at a time like this, when his defenses were lowered and such a barb was more likely to stick.

 

Hanzo snarled inwardly at himself--was it _meant_ as a barb, though, or merely to reinforce the fiction of the cowboy’s comradery? Perhaps his defenses were so low and his understanding so muddled that he was seeing a barb in place of another thread woven into the tapestry of the cowboy’s plot.

 

There was nothing that barred it from being both, of course.

 

The branches and needles of the trees rustled, creaked, and protested as he and the two trailing Overwatch agents shoved their way through the thicket, and the scent of their sap seemed thicker, almost suffocating in the near-darkness. It was impossible to know exactly where he was going, but the thicket was not so very large that it was a problem--so long as he headed generally downhill, he could be sure of emerging into the depression rather than further out of it. The cowboy and Agent Mei tried to keep up and help with the red beams of their flashlights, but even when they got as close as they dared the help was minimal.

 

After a few minutes they finally broke out of the thicket into a bordering field. Hanzo took a moment to orient himself by the barely visible outline of the surrounding mountains against the starry sky before he set off towards the homestead. The Overwatch agents hurried to catch up--a glow from behind Hanzo revealed they were checking their comms, but Hanzo’s direction was apparently true. The glow shut off and they both caught up and walked on both sides of him with no commentary.

 

So soon after a new moon, the thin waxing crescent would have long since set, so there was little natural light to work with, but thanks to the flashlights Hanzo saw most of the stones and holes in his path before they could embarrass him. He did have to concentrate fairly hard on the ground immediately before his feet as they crossed the fields between the thicket and the nearest road and thus saw nothing of his surroundings. The road was somewhat easier to walk on when they arrived, but it was easy to get overconfident--he gave up on trying to march with his head held high after tripping on the fourth loose piece of concrete and kept his eyes on his feet. He would have to wait until he was sober to attempt to regain any dignity.

 

After a long time spent in silence as the group made their way up the decaying road, he realized with a start that the cowboy had dropped behind a little bit while Agent Mei kept pace. He looked over his shoulder at the dark trailing figure, but Agent Mei spoke up at the same moment.

 

“So, uh--” she said nervously. “Genji said that, uh--that you two had an argument.”

 

Hanzo could not hold back a snort. If Genji’s weak protests were what he called an “argument”, then he truly was not the brother Hanzo once knew.

 

Agent Mei looked somewhat alarmed at the noise, though, so Hanzo reined himself in before he attempted to placate her. “We--had words,” he managed to admit. “Words that were ill-considered.”

 

Agent Mei nodded with a serious expression. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked after visibly gathering herself. “Genji--he--” She stopped short and frowned in concentration, the expression barely visible. “If you want to talk, I’m here,” she said at last, making a point of looking him in the eye. “And Lúcio and Winston say you can give them a call whenever, they’ve got their comms on them all the time. You--you’re not alone anymore either.”

 

Hanzo clamped his jaw as tightly closed as he could manage--in his current state, he might say anything. It was safer to concentrate on keeping his mouth shut as he should have done with Genji.

 

And it was a good thing, too. The thought of speaking with Agents Mei or Lúcio was impossible--the idea of speaking with _Winston_ was absurd. Calling the commander of Overwatch to discuss the reasons why he, a half-agent on parole, had managed to drive away two agents during a high-risk mission while fucking off to get drunk in the middle of nowhere-- _again_ \--only the combination of his teeth grinding tightly against each other coupled with the shame welling up in his chest kept him from openly laughing at the idea.

 

But his reaction was apparently not unforeseen.

 

“Winston told me that if you do call him, it would be a strictly private conversation, off the record and with no bearing on Overwatch,” said Agent Mei. He thought he caught a quick glance at his jaw, but surely the darkness disguised the muscles working there. “He--he’s concerned about the effects of all this on the team, of course, but--he wants to make it clear he’s offering a friendly ear as a f-as a friend.” She swapped out the hesitation on saying the word with an almost biting determination, and when he looked at her she had her own jaw set and her eyes glittered with an almost challenging look. “And so does Lúcio. And so do I,” she added, not looking away or sounding nervous in the slightest.

 

It was too much, and Hanzo tore his teeth apart.

 

“You are all--” he said hotly--

 

_I will not disrespect their kindness._

 

\--and his mouth snapped shut again. He shot a glare over his shoulder at the specter of the cowboy trailing behind, simultaneously hoping the cowboy could see and not see his displeasure through the dark.

 

Had he spoken too hastily then, to make such a promise? Agent Mei and Agent Lúcio and especially Winston should _know_ how ill-advised their kindness was--it was one thing to treat Hanzo politely, but it was quite another to offer-- _counsel_ \--and it was preposterous that Winston, with all his responsibilities, would do something as dangerous as offer Hanzo a private conversation. Did he not know how easily such a privilege could be twisted to nefarious purposes, how easily it could put him in a compromising position?

 

This was not kindness. It was foolishness, and they should all know better.

 

But how to make them understand without--without such a regrettable outburst as he had just graced Genji with?

 

“Idiots?” asked Agent Mei before he could formulate a response, with a complete lack of surprise or visible hurt.

 

“No,” he managed to say through his surprise and rising shame. “No, that’d also be an ill-considered word.”

 

“But an honest one,” she countered, tilting her head back slightly and releasing him from her steely stare to look up at the sky. “We really would be idiots to trust you--if you weren’t trustworthy.”

 

Hanzo scowled and shook his head. “I’m _not,”_ he growled, and it was, again, too late to keep his mouth shut. “I’m _not_ trustworthy, so reconsider your actions. Don’t make foolish offers--tell _Winston_ not to make such a foolish offer! You and Agent Lúcio have only yourselves to compromise, but he has the entire organization on his shoulders. _I_ would never have put myself on the line for someone like me when I led my clan. Tell him from a former leader that his pity--his _kindness_ is misplaced. As is yours,” he finished, looking at the cracked road ahead, terminating the conversation.

 

Except not.

 

“Which is misplaced? My pity or my kindness?” asked Agent Mei, and for the first time since he had known her, anger was coloring her voice. It instantly set Hanzo on guard--the axiom _beware the fury of the gentle_ had proven itself to him before. “Because let me tell you: I don’t waste pity on people who don’t deserve it, so of course I don’t have any for you.”

 

It was remarkable how she could say such biting words with almost no bite--her tone was almost academic.

 

“Pity is something that’s meant for people who suffer from circumstances beyond their control,” she continued, pressing a finger to the bridge of her glasses. “The victims of a hurricane or a flood or a tsunami, for example. They did little to nothing to invite their pain, so of course I pity them. But you?” She looked up at him with a cool expression. “It’s more complicated than that. You’re a victim of circumstance as far as being born into a yakuza clan--but you’re mostly in a hell of your own making. I don’t pity you, ex-yakuza boss. I really would be an idiot to pity someone like you.

 

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t be kind.”

 

Despite the words, her face and tone remained unchanged and cold.

 

“I think pity is automatic--you can’t really help it sometimes. But kindness is a choice. And because it’s a choice, kindness can be tailored. Sometimes kindness is offering a shoulder to cry on. Sometimes--” And now a note of hesitation, a certain quiet and raw edge, crept into her voice, but she powered on. “Sometimes it’s a quick death, going for the headshot so the enemy doesn’t suffer too long.”

 

She was silent for a few moments after that, and Hanzo could not help but stare at her profile for a few moments.

 

“Back during the Crisis,” she said slowly, “I was drafted when I was fourteen. Not officially, but things were desperate--the Omnics had captured the southern and northern thirds of the coast, and if they managed to get that last third, all one billion of us would have been cut off from the quickest help. So of course they made every single person capable of moving do their part. They did their best to keep everyone as young as me in the backlines away from the fighting, but I served in the supply lines, and the Omnics did their best to cut them off. They killed a lot of us during raids, and it didn’t take long before a soldier gave me a gun and a crash course in shooting. You know what the first thing she said to me was?”

 

She looked up and met Hanzo’s stare squarely. “‘Show no mercy. Give no quarter. They will kill you in a second, so you must kill them in a moment.’” Agent Mei’s lips thinned until they were colorless and white even in the red glow of her flashlight. “And I obeyed. And it worked. I lived long enough to be officially drafted when I turned eighteen, but by then Overwatch had shut down both the Siberia and Hunan Omniums, so I wasn’t killing many Omnics by then.

 

“But I wanted to. More than anything.”

 

The words were as cold as her eyes--even as she smiled slightly, an icy, sardonic smile.

 

“I hated them,” she said softly. “I hated them with all my heart. They killed so many of my friends, so many people I knew and didn’t know. They tried to kill all of us, and for a long time the only solution I was willing to see was to kill them first.” A shadow passed over her face at that moment, and the sharp icy glint in her eyes dulled as she looked away. “I was almost assigned to guard duty for a relocation center for civilian Omnics once,” she said, and her voice shook. “If that had gone through--I can’t bear to think what I might have done. There--there were times--back during the fighting--”

 

She seemed to struggle to speak for a few moments--and then she shook her head. “Luckily for them _and_ me,” she said brusquely, “I was sent home instead. When the Crisis started to wind down, they didn’t want people to start asking all the young kids in the military caravans just _how_ young they were, so they sent me home. I hadn’t seen my family in person for four years, and--”

 

She paused for a long time, almost long enough to make Hanzo think she had stopped talking altogether in favor of the silence broken only by the steady crunch of pebbles and plant matter underfoot.

 

“--my mother asked me where her sweet child had gone.”

 

Another long pause.

 

“She always called me her ‘sweet bun’,” Agent Mei said with a small huff of a laugh, “She was so proud of how well I tried to treat others growing up. It was almost funny, in a way, when I came home. We’d been in contact during my military service, but you can hide things so easily over a commlink. She thought I’d been coping well with my situation. She’d believed the official reports that children like me were being kept away from the fighting. She was horrified when a child soldier came home, one who wasn’t sweet at all.

 

“It took a few years and a lot of help to learn how to be kind again,” she murmured. “And even now it’s not something that I’m confident in. Not after I was lost in so much hatred when I was so young. It--it’s even been difficult working with Zenyatta these past few days. I never know what to say to him, or to most Omnics--except for Snowball,” she said with another small, hollow laugh and a look over her shoulder. “But he doesn’t count. I never had to--there were never any of _him_ during--”

 

She stopped and audibly swallowed.

 

“Sorry,” she said almost too quietly to hear. “I do have a point, I swear. I, uh--I just--last week, in the Orca, when McCree said that I’d be nice to you just because that’s the kind of person I am? He was wrong. It was the kind of person I _was,_ but now--kindness is my first choice because I’ve seen what happens when it’s not.”

 

Hanzo listened with an odd mixture of sympathy, wariness, and impatience. Agent Mei’s personnel file had revealed her military service, with an annotation explaining its less-than-legal status if the reader bothered to match up the dates with her birthday. He was more interested in observing the flurry of emotions playing out across her face and in her voice. After reading the file, he had wondered at her gentle and--sweet--disposition, but he had not expected an opportunity to see under the surface so soon. Like a calm sea, the surface was hiding much underneath.

 

But none of this was much of an answer towards his core allegation.

 

“I have been told,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “not to disrespect your kindness, and the advice was well-given. However, I still believe it is an error to waste it on me.”

 

“Maybe,” she said with a small shrug. “Maybe it is.” Then she stopped and turned to face him head on. “And that’s the point of me telling you all this,” she said with the steely look directly into his eyes, “Being kind isn’t something I do because I can’t help it. I’m not nice because I’m--because I’m _naïve_ or _stupid._ I’ve _decided_ to be kind to you--and I can decide not to, if you give me a reason.”

 

“You _have_ a--” Hanzo blurted.

 

“I _had_ a reason,” overrode Agent Mei, barking the words to drown out Hanzo. “But I’ve been asked to set it aside.”

 

“And _that_ is why--” Hanzo began again hotly, incensed at being interrupted.

 

“--why you’ll have to give me a new reason,” she blithely interjected.

 

“When it would be too late--”

 

“It would, were it to happen.”

 

_“You don’t know--”_

 

“But _you_ do, so, tell me, right here and now,” she challenged, staring imperiously up at him. “Can we trust you?”

 

Hanzo glared back. “You shouldn’t.”

 

“That wasn’t my question.”

 

“But that is the answer!”

 

“The answer to a question I never asked.”

 

 _“How?”_ growled Hanzo.

 

Agent Mei looked up at him, unabashed and seemingly unsurprised. “I didn’t ask whether you think I should trust you,” she said. “I know why I _shouldn’t._ I’m asking if I _can.”_

 

Hanzo set his jaw, looked away, and started walking, trying to screw his anger back down into the pit of his stomach, trying to get it back under control. The baijiu was still strong in his blood, and so it took a fair amount of time before he felt he could speak again without a better-than-even chance of having to turn right back around and drown himself in more alcohol.

 

Agent Mei, to her credit, waited quite patiently, keeping pace at his side with her eyes on the ground before them.

 

“You--” began Hanzo, and his reluctant, tentative, _weak_ voice immediately filled him with shame, and it took several more minutes to work _that_ back into a manageable form.

 

“You can trust me,” he said as soon as he could mimic some form of an acceptable tone, “to do my utmost not to fail you-- _but.”_

 

It took a minute more to push through the stifling pride that surged through his chest and tried to choke off his words before they could leave his throat.

 

“You must not trust that I will succeed,” he said at last, fighting to keep his voice level. “My utmost has never been enough. I _will_ fail you, and when I do, there is no telling what you may lose. G--” he cut himself, abruptly enough that his teeth rattled as they audibly clicked together.

 

Genji had not expected to lose so much. _Hanzo_ had not expected him to lose so much, “only” his life--but somehow, impossibly, he lost so much more.

 

Far too much.

 

Agent Mei walked beside him for a long, silent while, her head bowed as she picked her away around and over the debris revealed by the red oval before her feet.

 

“In this line of work,” she said, her earlier, surprising confidence gone and her voice once again fragile, “you never know what you’ll lose, or when. Even if you’re--ha,” she huffed when her voice broke on the last word. Hanzo could see her turn her head away from the corner of his eye, and he steadfastly looked straight ahead as she composed herself.

 

“Even if you’re in the ‘backlines’,” she said, turning back after a minute or so of deep, slow breaths in and out.

 

Hanzo kept quiet--Agent Mei’s personnel file had detailed the terrible fate of Ecopoint: Antarctica.

 

“So--so even--even if failure is inevitable--and it _is_ inevitable--your best is no better or worse than what any of us are giving.”

 

Hanzo’s lips tried to twitch into something sardonic, but he clamped down on them with an iron will; his inebriation was noticeably diminishing at last.

 

“I doubt,” he began tonelessly--

 

 _\--that you or anyone in Overwatch can match the magnitude of my failures_ was what he planned to say.

 

But a gravelly voice in a large, echoing canteen that had been abandoned for four years broke into his thoughts mid-sentence.

 

 _“I don’t know how much you know about the end of Overwatch, but suffice to say, it was inevitable. You just can’t have that many dangerous people cooped up together without it all_ blowing up.”

 

He had to suppress a snort.

 

Perhaps he could not claim a monopoly on the complete and utter failure of a proud and noble institution, though Overwatch was only the work of two decades rather than nearly two millennia as the clan had been.

 

In that light--well. It felt almost like Hanzo had lost the high ground, though the high ground of _what_ exactly was difficult to say.

 

Nevertheless.

 

He sucked in a deep breath through his nose and sighed. “You have your answer,” he said instead, trying to keep as much petulance out of his voice as possible.

 

Agent Mei hummed a little in affirmation. “Yeah. Verbally, at least--I think you demonstrated it well enough in India, though.”

 

There was still enough alcohol in Hanzo that he could not avoid rolling his eyes. “That could have meant anything.”

 

“So what _did_ it mean?” she immediately asked, and while she was obviously aiming to sound challenging, there was a distinct undercurrent of amusement now. He pursed his lips at the sound of it.

 

“That I was doing my best,” he said shortly, and she chuckled a little bit.

 

There was nothing to say after that, and little time if there had been--they were approaching the homestead at long last, just in time to see a dark shape vaguely resembling a hovercycle depart and head north towards the valley where the Orca lay hidden. It was revealed more as a deeper shadow in the night more than anything--the sky had become cloudy during their walk, and the glorious starfields were largely masked.

 

Hanzo watched it disappear with an equal mixture of relief and shame--if it carried Genji, it was better that he was going as Hanzo came.

 

“That’s Genji and Zen,” said the cowboy quietly, picking that moment to approach them from behind. “Zen says they’ve got the last of the supplies goin’ t’the Orca.”

 

Both Hanzo and Agent Mei nodded, Agent Mei with a somber expression, Hanzo with a perfectly flat one.

 

“Tor’s also got the last of his turrets set up, so he’s comin’ back in,” the cowboy continued after a moment. “Just, uh--just in time for a team dinner?” The tone of the sentence lifted at the last possible moment, turning it into a question.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “I imagine,” he muttered, “that this team dinner is doubling as a planning session.”

 

The cowboy grimaced. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Yeah, it is.”

 

Hanzo nodded and said nothing more. His drunken escapade was no excuse to miss such a meeting when there was so little time to prepare.

 

They headed straight for the eastern house. Hanzo thought he could make out the outlines of drones hovering over all five buildings of the homestead, which would not be much of a surprise--as far as he knew, only Agents Pharah and D.Va were available to guard the Vishkar agent, so Athena was probably having to compensate for the lack of personnel while Genji and Agent Zenyatta were ferrying supplies, Agent Torbjörn was placing his turrets, and Agent Mei and the cowboy were waiting out a drunkard in his drinking shack in the hills.

 

 _Why_ had he been so foolish?

 

Agent Mei broke off from their little group as they passed the western house. “Back safe and sound!” she said with a small smile. “I’m going to join Fareeha on guard duty--we’ll be attending through our comms, so--have a good night, Agent Shimada and McCree!”

 

“You, too, Mei,” said the cowboy warmly as Hanzo nodded mutely. He watched her go with a strange feeling he could not quite name swirling in the pit of his stomach. Their conversation had been strangely taxing as he tried to simultaneously be honest and honor his promise while  processing her own earnest honesty.

 

When she had first had a gun placed in her hands at age fourteen, Hanzo had been twelve yet years deep into his training both in ninjutsu and as future _kumichō,_ but she had clearly gotten the raw end of the deal. Hanzo did not see real combat until he was sixteen, and the open battlefields of the Omnic Crisis were far worse than his own battlefields in dark back alleys and guarded compounds.

 

Hanzo allowed himself a small shake of his head when he recalled Agent Torbjörn’s words in the Orca--“a world worse than warfare.” He doubted that Agent Mei would agree given her own experience and marvelled that she had not spoken up back then--she had been in earshot, and she evidently had strong enough feelings about her experiences to power through her shyness.

 

Or perhaps she agreed on some level, he thought sourly. Perhaps out of misplaced compassion she would consider his own upbringing nearly as inappropriate for a young child as a warzone.

 

The cowboy’s boots gave a single jingle as they approached the eastern house. Hanzo abruptly wondered how the cowboy would compare their childhoods--he had expressed a false equivalency between his own childhood in organized crime and Hanzo’s before. What would _he_ say about Agent Mei’s experiences, both as part of the charade and more honestly?

 

The duo entered the dark interior of the eastern house and first the cowboy, then Hanzo sat to scrub at their feet. Hanzo tried to fight off a sense of finality as he wiped at the dirt and leaves clinging to his feet all the way up to his ankles, the washrag sticking wetly to the treesap coating his fingers.

 

There was no telling how the mission would go, but--somehow it seemed unlikely that they would be returning to this place afterwards. Or ever.

 

No time for such thoughts.

 

“When--” he began to say.

 

“We’ll start--” said the cowboy at the same time, calling from the kitchen as he turned on the lights. The two men fell silent for a few seconds before the cowboy cleared his throat. “Sorry, go ahead.”

 

“You were about to answer my question,” said Hanzo tiredly as he stood and moved towards the kitchen. The prospect of eating during a “team dinner” in the atmosphere he had created was not appealing in the slightest, so he was determined to get as much of the meal over with before anyone else arrived.

 

“Oh, really?” asked the cowboy with a faint chuckle. “Well, we’ll get started in a few minutes. Song and Tor are on their way. How’re you feeling? Need some water?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips at the question as he opened a cupboard and took out a single French _ration_ \--the conversation with Agent Mei had been sobering in more ones than one, but his limbs still felt heavy, his coordination subpar. And yes, he desperately needed water from a combination of the alcohol, the exercise, and the talking; his throat felt dry and scratchy in a way only baijiu and vodka and other hard liquors produced--one of many reasons he preferred _sake._

 

“Yes, I think water would be a good idea,” he muttered, and he had hardly finished the sentence when the water container was _glubglubbing_ as the cowboy filled an empty plastic water bottle.

 

He handed it to Hanzo with a small, “There ya go,” which Hanzo answered with an equally small thank you as he went to kneel at the table in the living room. The cowboy followed with his own _ration_ as he said, “It’ll probably be another two hours or so before we can break out Angie’s nanites. Oh!” he exclaimed, coming to a dead stop just before he sat. “Which reminds me! You got a package from Angie! With so much going on, I’ve been forgettin’ t’get it to ya. Sorry ‘bout that. Lemme go grab it!” He dropped the _ration_ on the table and powerwalked through the kitchen to the hallway.

 

Hanzo watched him go with an impassive expression. He doubted that the cowboy had been forgetful--Athena had mentioned that either the cowboy or Genji would give it to him, and he would not be surprised if Genji had been trying to wait for some opportune moment that Hanzo had not allowed to happen. Perhaps his brother had given up on such a moment ever happening--but it was more likely the sudden deadline imposed by the new mission had forced him to hand it over to the cowboy.

 

It hardly mattered. Hanzo was sure he knew already what the package was.

 

He broke open the _ration_ and began to power his way through the two main courses, one of which was rather ironically _paella._ He had already finished most of them when the cowboy returned.

 

“Here ya go,” he said, holding out a small box wrapped in thick brown packaging paper. “Angie said it was confidential, so I won’ ask any questions. Y’might wanna put it away before Song gets here though.”

 

Hanzo sighed and nodded as he put down his _paella--_ Agent D.Va would certainly not let confidentiality deter any questions. He shuffled to his cello case and tucked the box inside next to the pocket containing the bottle of nanites Dr. Ziegler had given him on the Orca--it was almost certainly more of the same, since she had bemoaned the “limited supply” she had on board during the trip.

 

Her professionalism really was quite astounding.

 

Hanzo returned to the table as the cowboy let himself down with a sigh and tore open his own meal. The two men ate in silence for a few minutes, and it took that long for Hanzo to stop forcing himself to chew and swallow the more nutritious portions to notice that the atmosphere was not nearly so--charged--as he expected.

 

The cowboy was poking at his comm as he ate, typing out messages from time to time as well as scrolling through what looked to be satellite pictures and blocks of text, sometimes frowning in concentration in the bland light from the kitchen, sometimes biting his bottom lip, sometimes quirking one corner of his mouth to the side as he worked, hardly paying attention to his meal--or to Hanzo.

 

Hanzo was struck again by how very different it felt to be alone with the cowboy these days. The atmosphere was very much like under the ruined portico than under the cedars--they were existing fairly easily despite being so close to one another, or at least, it felt that way to Hanzo and his instincts.

 

He would not be surprised if the cowboy chose a moment like this to drop the facade and attack--it would be a masterful stroke, really, after lowering Hanzo’s defenses by acclimating him to the cowboy’s non-irritating presence.

 

Someday it might happen--but Hanzo could not help the feeling that it would not be today.

 

It was probably because Overwatch could use the help for this new, unexpected mission.

 

Hanzo’s curiosity about the details of the mission was steadily increasing as his stomach filled, the stubborn dry feeling in his throat washed away, and the alcohol in his blood continued to drop--this was potentially the first mission he would have with a team of Overwatch agents.

 

He doubted that anyone would say the Niigata warehouse counted--he certainly did not.

 

Finally a knock came at the door, in the form of pounding booms.

 

“Knock knock!” came the amused voice of Agent Torbjörn.

 

“C’mon in!” yelled the cowboy, not looking up from the comm. Hanzo braced himself as the door opened and Agents Torbjörn and D.Va came in, and he was right to do so.

 

“So, how’d the bar crawl go?” asked Agent Torbjörn with a lopsided smile twisting his moustache as soon as he spotted Hanzo. “Meet anyone interesting out there?”

 

Hanzo could not stop the grimace. “I--I apologize,” he said quietly, glancing at the cowboy to include him. “My actions were--”

 

“Eh, save it for the inquiry,” interrupted Agent Torbjörn as he sat on the stool and took the washrag in hand. “It’s not the first time or the last someone disappears and comes back stinking of booze--it’ll be quite the reversal if yer on the board, eh, McCree?”

 

The cowboy looked up with a scowl. “How’s about none of that right before a mission, huh?” he said severely.

 

Agent Torbjörn chuckled as he handed the washrag to Agent D.Va without rinsing it first. She accepted it with a contorted, pained expression, pinching it between thumb and forefinger even though she was wearing gloves before she dropped it back in the water. She sat and cleaned off her own feet, and she surprised Hanzo by offering no commentary of her own--not even a look. She simply wiped her feet off, stood, and then sat again at the table, back straight, expression serious as she took her gloves off and set them to one side.

 

“Any news from Athena or Winston?” she asked, tone flat.

 

“Ayup,” replied the cowboy, glancing at his screen. “We’ll get to it. Is everyone all packed up and ready?”

 

“Everyone but your little hiking party,” Agent Torbjörn said as he went into the kitchen.

 

“Good.” The cowboy turned to Hanzo and said, “The Orca’s near full-up, so we won’ be takin’ absolutely everything with us tomorrow--we gotta come back and pick up the home guard anyway. So pack up your stuff in case we’re in a hurry when we swing by--but only plan on takin’ your battle gear on the mission.”

 

“Understood,” said Hanzo, glancing at his cello case and suitcase.

 

Agent Torbjörn returned with a stack of MREs in his arms. He set one down in front of everyone, including Hanzo. He started to protest, but Agent Torbjörn actually shushed him. “How long were you out there? How much did you walk today? How much will you be running around tomorrow?” he asked in an almost rapidfire fashion. “Eat. You’ll need all of it.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips--but Agent Torbjörn had a point, so he obeyed.

 

He could not keep a silent sigh from escaping at the sight of the new food, though.

 

There was a minute of rustling and tearing paper and crinkling aluminum as Hanzo and the Overwatch agents opened up and laid out their food, and as soon as the noise subsided the cowboy spoke up.

 

“Alright, y’all,” he drawled as he set his comm in the middle of the table. A hologram sprang up, showing a square cutout of a map dominated by a tall, rounded, bulbous structure surrounded on all sides by curving, twisting wings that haphazardly sprawled in all directions which were themselves connected to several railways and roadways and even a small airport.

 

The Omnium.

 

“We ain’ got much t’go on,” said the cowboy, voice grave. “We don’ even know yet if this is where they are--this is just the most likely place. Therefore, we got three phases to the mission: infiltration, confirmation of enemy presence, and engagement once confirmed.” A small 3D black-and-white orca entered the hologram, flicking its tail up and down while flying low over the ground from the northeast. Hanzo stifled a snort at the on-the-nose icon as it landed on the outskirts of the Omnium and six differently colored and shaped icons appeared next to it.

 

“We’ll be comin’ in from the northeast after flyin’ low through the mountains to avoid bein’ seen by either Talon or the UN.”

 

Four yellow textboxes suddenly appeared in midair in front of Hanzo and each Overwatch agent:

  

 

> >From: Helix Agent Pharah
> 
> Isn’t that the most likely way Talon
> 
> came in?

 

“Yeah,” replied the cowboy, rubbing his chin with his metal hand, “which means it worked before, but it also means they mighta left behind sentinels t’watch for anyone comin’ in behind them. Luckily there are three corridors t’choose from and we’re thinkin’ they sent in a small team t’set up a teleporter. They won’ have had much opportunity t’drop watchdogs behind ‘em, and if they did we got a good chance of missin’ ‘em anyway.”

 

The meeting went on in the same vein for some time. The cowboy did most of the talking with each agent chiming in from time to time vocally or textually. Hanzo was somewhat mystified that Winston himself was not leading the meeting, but according to the cowboy he was busy working with Athena and others to analyze the veritable goldmine that Ms. Vaswani had apparently opened up to them, including the means that (allegedly) made this mission possible.

 

Apparently, Vishkar’s hardlight technology emitted electromagnetic fields that essentially served as broadcasted fingerprints--not only did it mark the technology as distinctly Vishkar, but it could also serve to identify what the hardlight was emulating, whether it was a simple wall, a weapon, or a teleporter. All electronic devices produced EM fields, of course, so the real key that Ms. Vaswani had handed to Overwatch was the patterns that Vishkar had recorded for its own research purposes--now they potentially knew how to detect nearby Vishkar technology as well as Vishkar itself.

 

And that meant that Overwatch was now able to investigate the connection between Vishkar and LumériCo, as well as check if any clandestine Vishkar activity was lurking around its main base in Gibraltar, as well as recheck the recordings Hanzo had obtained in the Kurnool District to see if Vishkar had stumbled over him after all--as well as see if there was an opportunity to cross-check Ms. Vaswani’s data and determine if it was genuine. _That_ was the main objective Winston was chasing at that moment, so he was leaving most of the planning and coordination of the mission to the Omnium in the cowboy’s hands.

 

He was apparently keeping an eye on the mission, though--at times the cowboy brought up blocks of text or map inserts for the agents to browse as he spoke, and each had a green check in the bottom right corner with the text “APPROVED: SC WINSTON, X.-1981” in bright red next to it.

 

His trust did not appear misplaced. The cowboy laid out his three-phase plan easily and concisely while accepting suggestions and criticism from his fellow Overwatch agents with smooth consideration and either submitting them to Winston for integration or firmly turning them down, though never without a short explanation.

 

Hanzo found himself analyzing the cowboy’s presentation style, comparing it to his own back in the days when he was a leader. The most obvious difference was the emphasis on collaboration--in the Shimada-gumi there was superficially a clear power structure that belied a complex vipers’ nest. Here, the cowboy was clearly in charge, but the other Overwatch agents seemed completely unafraid to speak their minds and equally willing to accept the cowboy’s decision, even if they were unhappy with it. Agents Torbjörn and Pharah seemed the most dissatisfied with the plan and did not hesitate to express it, but it was mostly because they shared a common grievance: they were not going.

 

 

> >From: Helix Agent Pharah
> 
> That’s one hell of a deathtrap if they catch
> 
> on to you guys. Would be nice if you had
> 
> someone else familiar with assaulting a hostile
> 
> Omnic facility with you.

 

“Two someones. With a nice turret watching your backs from a high vantage point,” groused Agent Torbjörn, gesturing at the veritable warren created by the almost chaotic layout of the Omnium’s facilities.

 

Near the center of the tangled mess was the Central Processing Facility, the large, spherical structure that was the heart of the Omnium of the whole, the actual site where the miracle of mass-produced AI took place. The rest of the facility was dedicated to the far easier task of constructing the chassis and bodies to house those newborn AIs.

 

The first few Omniums had been paragons of elegant, sleek postmodernism, a vision of the future that looked very similar to what Vishkar would later build out of hardlight. But as OmnicaCorp improved upon their designs (and, eventually, as the designs improved upon themselves), the intuitive and open designs became increasingly complicated, with the artificial intelligences trading aesthetic for a practicality that looked almost--organic.

 

There had been a lot of commentary on that during the glory days of OmnicaCorp. Once the designs of the Omniums were left almost entirely to AIs working towards pre-selected goals, the results seemed like a living thing, a fungus in a petri dish growing filaments towards nutrients or the roots of a plant seeking water. The Omniums almost literally grew, seeking the best routes to the surrounding utilities and transportation nodes as they built upon themselves to increase efficiency and capacity.

 

And the trend only continued once the Omniums abandoned pre-selected goals in favor of their own.

 

Now the organic layout had given over to decay and rot. The satellite photographs showed that the near-indestructible CPF was untouched by time, but the same could not be said for the rest of the facility. Many of the former production lines were roofless, with some collapsed and others blown clean off by typhoons. Others were overgrown with vegetation, their outlines blurred or outright hidden by trees and foliage taking root in the dirt and grime settling over the site or creeping in from the edges of the foundations.

And one wing was literally blasted apart, its walls and roof laid out flat and splayed outwards like an unfolded cardboard box.

 

That wing had been the target of the assault that ultimately shut down the Omnium.

 

The battle had obviously been intense--the satellite photos revealed literal heaps of Omnic remains scattered about the entire Omnium, but there were droves of them surrounding that wing, lying where they had been flung and tossed around in that final battle. It was a scene that Hanzo had passed many times on his journeys throughout Ainu-Mosir--magnified ten times.

 

He was not looking forward to seeing it from the ground.

 

“I’d like your turrets watchin’ my back as much as anyone, Tor,” the cowboy said agreeably, “but they ain’ that mobile, and mobility will be key. That’s why Agent Shimada’ll be playin’ the part, instead.” He pointed at a blue triangle that represented Hanzo--it had been moving along the line of rooftops as much as possible, with red icons marking possible safety hazards. “He’ll be able t’make better decisions than your turrets anyway, no offense. He and Genji’ll be our main lookouts--and Song, too, if need be.”

 

Agent D.Va nodded. She had offered fairly little during the meeting, but her focus on it had been intense, to the point where she was hardly blinking. “Most of the structures are within MEKA’s vertical range,” she said, her voice clipped and professional and most unlike her. “Limited recon won’t be a problem if necessary.”

 

The cowboy nodded, and Hanzo thought he could see a slight thinning of his lips before he spoke again. “Alright, sounds good. Now, once we’re in, we’ll work our way in towards the CPF--if Talon’s sniffin’ around for something t’salvage, they’ll be lookin’ in the most tech-critical parts. If we go in and find nothing, we’ll go back the way we came, rendezvous with the Orca, and get the hell outta dodge. If we _do_ find something or someone, here’re the three main scenarios--”

 

It took some time to work through each scenario, but they differed mostly in the number of personnel: a small infiltration team or two larger ones. Hanzo’s role as a sniper was almost the same in all three, and a fairly familiar role even if he had never worked in a team before, but there was one big concern: he was also expected to relay oncoming hazards as he saw them coming.

 

He could tell from the curling, anxious feeling in his gut that that might be somewhat difficult, especially in a combat setting.

 

And the feeling only got worse when the cowboy mentioned that Talon may have snipers of their own.

 

“That might actually be a sign of how seriously they’re takin’ this,” he said as red hazard icons popped up in places that could potentially serve as sniper nests. “If they just got one of their run-of-the-mill snipers, it ain’ such a big priority. But if we see Widowmaker--”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips, and he blamed the alcohol for allowing his mouth to fall open and say, “Widowmaker? _She_ may be there?”

 

He fought not to shrink under the sudden gaze of the other agents, but he managed to sit firm under their scrutiny.

 

“You know her?” asked the cowboy with a slightly raised eyebrow.

 

Hanzo shook his head slightly, both at his lack of control and in answer to the question. “I have never met her, but I know _of_ her, of course. She is--notorious. She is mentioned frequently in assassination contracts as a benchmark for the level of skill an employer is looking for.”

 

A message immediately popped up before every agent present and Hanzo. 

 

 

> >From: Agent Tracer
> 
> Oh, I bet--she’s awful. Exactly the kind
> 
> those tossers would love to get their
> 
> hands on to do all kinds of dirty work.

  

 

> >From: Agent Tracer:
> 
> Does this mean that you’re on her level,
> 
> then?

 

Hanzo thinned his lips. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the cowboy grimace at the message.

   

 

> >From: Agent Tracer:
> 
> I mean aw bugger quick Athena switch
> 
> to audio

 

And Agent Tracer’s voice suddenly erupted out of the cowboy’s comm.

 

“I didn’t mean _on her level_ on her level,” she almost yelled, causing either her microphone or the cowboy’s speaker to crackle slightly. “Just--sniper-wise, yeah? Skill-wise!”

 

“I understand, Agent Tracer,” said Hanzo, his tone cool for more than one reason. The cowboy continued to grimace, but Agents D.Va and Torbjörn seemed to find the situation humorous--both cracked a smile, though Agent D.Va’s seemed somewhat forced. They both soured his mood, but he kept his words level and brief as he continued, looking at the cowboy through the hologram. “If she is present, then I will not be able to maintain surveillance of the battleground.”

 

“Obviously,” replied the cowboy with a short nod. “If she’s there, she’ll be your top priority--even just distractin’ her will do a lot t’keep our brains tucked inside our skulls. Just be sure t’let us know when you’re not keepin’ eyes on us if you go after her.” He paused for a second, then continued with a tight expression, “Th-that’ll be the biggest thing for you t’remember, Agent Shimada. Communication. You haven’ gotten the chance t’train with us, but so long as you keep talkin’, things’ll go a lot smoother. We, uh--we used t’have commchatter down to an artform. Back in--back in Niigata you heard us when we were rusty. We’ve got almost all of it back nowadays.”

 

Hanzo did not exactly know how to take this news. It was distinctly uncomfortable recalling any of the events in Niigata, but what he remembered of the commchatter was sparse yet already excessive. He could not imagine what “artform” commchatter could take, but it was likely to be far more distracting than helpful.

 

But all he did was nod. “Very well.”

 

“Athena will forward you all the info we got on Widowmaker, by the by,” said the cowboy with a tone that aimed to sound helpful. “Overwatch ran into her a couple of times before we were disbanded, and Lena went toe-to-toe with her recently. She might be able to answer any questions you got.”

 

“Yeah!” said Agent Tracer brightly, evidently still on the audio channel. “Yeah, I, uh--” then her voice became more clouded. “We tangled one-on-one. Didn’t go too well, actually.” She seemed to rally enough to say in a more falsely cheerful tone, “But yeah, let me know if you need to know anything!”

 

“Very well,” he repeated, anxious to stop speaking. Agent Tracer had reminded him that the occupants of the Orca were listening in.

 

He doubted at least one of them was particularly interested in hearing his voice, and he was even less interested in being heard.

 

The meeting went on, dragging for at least ninety minutes until the cowboy was satisfied they had covered the plan and all its permutations in sufficient detail. He finally finished up, saying, “Alright, team, we got this. Stick t’the plan, look after yourselves, and we’ll come outta this _just_ fine. Everybody try t’get some rest--we all need t’be at our best come morning. We ship out at 0430.”

 

Hanzo looked down at the extra meal Agent Torbjörn had placed before him, untouched since being opened. He waited until the hologram blinked out and the cowboy tucked his comm back into his pocket to begin picking at it--it was much easier to contemplate food when he was fairly sure the audio link was broken.

 

Agent D.Va and the cowboy began to pay attention to their food as well--the cowboy had been far too busy talking, of course, but why Agent D.Va had left hers was anyone’s guess. Even now as she lifted a first bite of _paella_ to her mouth she seemed about as enthusiastic as Hanzo.

 

Agent Torbjörn, on the other hand, noisily scooped up the devastated and sparse remains of his meal that he had steadily munched through all along. “Welp, nothing more to do than try to get some decent shut-eye,” he announced into the heavy, tense atmosphere that had descended on the room. “So who here needs a good bedtime story to help them drift off? I’ve got plenty.”

 

Agent D.Va rolled her eyes, almost against her own will, it seemed, because she sobered again quite quickly--but not nearly to the same degree as before. “You gonna tuck us in, too, old man?” she asked, the taunt tired and strained. “I think maybe the gunslinger could use it most.”

 

“Sure could,” muttered the cowboy as he stood and stretched both arms, flesh and metal, above his head. “Maybe _Prince Hat_? If you don’ mind me workin’ while you tell it.”

 

“Never have before, have I? Ah, damn, I just admitted you work sometimes,” groused the engineer with a regretful smile as he jabbed a finger in the cowboy’s direction. “I _am_ getting old if the truth keeps slipping out.”

 

The cowboy also rolled his eyes as he picked up the water jug off the ground and set it on the table. “Careful now, your system won’ be able t’say nice things ‘bout me without gettin’ a rash.”

 

“Then I’ll just say one more thing,” Agent Torbjörn replied, suddenly and pointedly serious. “I wish I was going, partly because I don’t like standing around and partly because this is a good plan you’ve come up with. It’ll be a shame not to see you carry it through.”

 

The cowboy looked shocked, frozen in mid-motion as he had gone to fill up the plastic bottle from the MRE with water from the jug. “I--uh, well, thanks.”

 

The engineer hummed a little and glanced at both Hanzo and Agent D.Va. “It’s been a bumpy road, McCree,” he said, stroking one of the plaits of his beard. “And there’s gonna be more bumps before things shake out, but yer doing good. It was like seeing Ana at the head of the table again. Or Gabe.”

 

Now the cowboy looked flabbergasted. “Well, I--once I get things sorted out a little, I ain’ too bad at things. Once they’re sorted.”

 

“Bumps in the road,” repeated Agent Torbjörn, his smile softening, just a little. “You got a good team at your back, too, which helps.”

 

Hanzo held back a snort and looked down at the food before him. There was at least one member of the team whose previous participation had ended in outright disaster. The engineer’s confidence was--

 

“After all, we’ve got yer head out of yer ass _and_ we’ve got Agent Shimada’s drunken bender out of the way,” said the engineer lightly. “So that’s two points in your favor over last time. Now there isn’t anything more to worry about except normal things, like getting shot or blown up, eh? Nice and relaxing in comparison.”

 

Agent D.Va let out a small groan as the cowboy firmly pressed his lips together. Then he smiled. “Just knew that morbid sense of humor was sneakin’ around somewhere,” he teased. He filled his bottle and sat again, and Agent Torbjörn did the same after stuffing the remains of his MRE in a trashbag waiting by the door.

 

“Alright, then, _Prince Hat._ Once upon a time, in a marvellous, magical land called Sweden--”

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” interrupted Agent D.Va, waving her hands and her face scrunched up in disbelief. “You were serious?”

 

“Nothing like a good storyteller t’take your mind off tomorrow,” said the cowboy--completely _seriously._ “Tor and Rein used t’fight over who got t’tell one the night before a mission. Tor knows a lot of ‘em by heart by virtue of constant repetition.”

 

“Not so much with _Prince Hat,”_ sniffed Agent Torbjörn, his eyes the slightest bit unfocused in recollection. “Now _Mount of the Golden Queen--_ Brigitte made me tell that one over and over. She even made herself the iron shoes out of the scrap metal in my workshop--the first thing she ever made by herself.”

 

The cowboy looked up and smiled. “How many shins she break with them?”

 

“None, so far as anyone could prove,” chortled Agent Torbjörn. “Anyway, yer free to go somewhere else if yer not in the mood for a story, but this one is pretty good as stories go-- _and_ it’s the Swedish version, which makes it even better.”

 

“How many versions are there?” asked Agent D.Va, picking at her food but giving no sign that she was about to leave.

 

“The Swedish one and all the others,” said Agent Torbjörn smugly. “Anyway! Once upon a summer golden and fair--”

 

Agent D.Va did not go despite the tone of her outburst. Instead she looked rather baffled, looking from the engineer to the cowboy and back again as though she could not believe that one was actually telling a bedtime story or that the other was actually listening to it--but the cowboy’s implied assessment of Agent Torbjörn as a good storyteller was accurate, and he soon caught her attention with his sweeping descriptions of the characters and locales, as well as his “attempts” at funny voices, which she smiled and rolled her eyes at.

 

Hanzo recognized the attempts for what they were: a way to engage and disarm the audience. His own father had used similar tactics during his own storytelling--he had also been quite proficient in the art, and had a great store to draw upon as well; to be expected of a literary professor and historian.

 

But more importantly, Agent Torbjörn was quite happily drawing all the attention in the room to himself, so Hanzo felt safely ignored as he finished this second course of dinner. Once again he concentrated on the most calorie- and nutrient-dense portions--the chocolate and energy bars would make an excellent pick-me-up in the hour or so before the mission itself began.

 

Hanzo could even avail himself of them despite traveling to the Omnium by air, assuming that Dr. Ziegler’s nanites worked as well on airsickness as they did on seasickness. There was no reason to expect otherwise--and in fact, looking back on his last Orca flight, they _had_ worked. The landing on Iwaki-yama had produced no airsickness at all. He had not paid attention to it because of Winston and Genji’s insistence on taking the security subsystem with him.

 

So that was another small problem solved.

 

He and Agent D.Va finished their meals about the same time. By then she was listening quite attentively, hardly reacting when Hanzo reached over and took away the empty containers of her meal. He did not stand in order to minimize disrupting the story--he discreetly shuffled on his knees to the trashbag and opened and closed it without so much as a rustle from the plastic.

 

But his concentration and the movement itself set off a pulsing dull ache at the base of his skull--the hangover was coming.

 

He glanced at the cowboy, but he was still working on the comm. Hanzo might interrupt a story, but he would not interrupt official work. He went back to his place at the table, filled a bottle with water from the jug to try to keep the hangover at bay as best he could, and settled back into _seiza_ to wait for the end.

 

It did not seem to take long despite Hanzo’s general disinterest--when Agent Torbjörn began to wrap up the story, Hanzo took out his comm and was surprised to see that another thirty minutes had passed.

 

“--and they journeyed back together, their joy growing as they found each of their three children before arriving at the marvellous underground kingdom, which had become clean and whole and snake-free when the spell was broken. They lived in perfect happiness there after. The end!” he finished, standing up and twirling his hands as he bowed.

 

Both of the other agents clapped, and Hanzo joined in after a moment’s hesitation. Agent Torbjörn bowed again and chuckled, even when Agent D.Va’s applause turned more into a sardonic slow clap. “Alright, alright,” he said, “You’ve stoked my ego far enough.”

 

“Doesn’t take much to top it off,” retorted Agent D.Va impudently.

 

“Nope!” agreed Agent Torbjörn unrepentantly, and a yawn immediately followed the single word. “But now it’ll be time to actually get some sleep. _All_ of you,” he admonished, looking at the cowboy.

 

“I’m gettin’ ganged up on,” complained the cowboy as he shut off the comm. “Winston and Athena just cut me off, and now you’re gettin’ all up in my business.”

 

“That’s only three voices of reason, then,” mused the engineer. “Used to take five to bring down the Big Three. D.Va, Agent Shimada? Join me in the dogpile?”

 

“Alright, alright,” conceded the cowboy with an exaggerated grimace and put upon tone. “And just as soon as the innocent eyes of our lady guest are safely ensconced within the ladies’ hut, Agent Shimada here in particular can get ready t’sleep, too.”

 

Agent D.Va snorted as she stood, shaking out her legs slightly as she did so. “Is that a fancy way of saying ‘dismissed’?”

 

“Ayup.”

 

“Okay, I’ll leave you old men alone to scrape each other’s bunions or whatever old men do alone with each other,” she said as she strode to the door. “Good night, bunion-scrapers.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips but murmured a quiet farewell to echo the other two agents’ as the door closed noisily behind her. Agent Torbjörn disappeared down the hallway after a friendly nod, leaving the cowboy and Hanzo alone in the common room.

 

The cowboy cleared his throat. “So, uh--you startin’ t’feel it a little?”

 

Hanzo suppressed a sigh and nodded.

 

“Alright, that’ll be the sign that the nanites won’ be deactivated as soon as they hit your bloodstream,” said the cowboy with a faint smile. He produced a small plastic bottle with a flat safety cap out of his pocket and handed it to Hanzo. He popped it open and looked inside--there was only room for six large nanite pills inside, identical to the ones Dr. Ziegler had given him in the Orca. “Keep the bottle for tomorrow morning. You need t’keep takin’ them as long as the hangover itself lasts--this just blocks the symptoms is all, which means you gotta work on keepin’ hydrated as though you were still feelin’ it.”

 

Hanzo nodded in acknowledgement, still looking down at the pills. He debated whether he should ask whether these were indeed the same as the nanites he already had--he likely had an ample supply if his suspicions about Dr. Ziegler’s package were correct.

 

But the cowboy was not likely to know, so Hanzo shelved that particular concern--but there was one more he needed to address. He looked up and straightened his back and shoulders, though his posture had already been near-perfect. “Thank you, Agent McCree. And--and I would like to apologize for forcing you and Agent Mei to come fetch me. I made a--I made several shortsighted decisions that caused you all great inconvenience. It will not happen again.”

 

The cowboy’s face fell into a quiet, pensive expression. “Well, Agent Shimada,” he said slowly. “I wasn’ kiddin’ when I said I got dragged back t’base reeking of whiskey more than once, and it weren’ too convenient for anyone back then either. A couple a’--more’n a couple of times, I was drinkin’ to, uh--t’deal with some things.” The last few words were said very carefully, but Hanzo tensed all the same. What had Genji told the cowboy? What had he told all of Overwatch? What was private and what was not in this situation?

 

It was somewhat of a shock when the cowboy got directly to that point. “All Genji’s said is that you two had an argument,” the cowboy said, keeping his voice low. “Frankly, we’ve--that is, Winston and I--we’ve been expectin’ the two of you t’have words sooner or later. Zen even came to us t’make sure we were, but we were. That’s just the way it is. In a place like Overwatch--and Blackwatch--you hadta expect a certain number of disagreements a month, and Genji used t’cause about a third of ‘em all by himself. So, it ain’ unexpected. Timing was a bit shit, but that ain’ your fault or Genji’s.”

 

Hanzo’s insides had gone cold at the mention of Genji’s behavior during his time in Blackwatch. There was a certain amount of sick, guiltridden relief that he had not spent the entire time camped out and brooding in some dark corner for all those years, that he had been out expressing his anger against his circumstances--but it also revealed another level to the anguish his brother had felt. Had he yo-yoed between depressive states where he could not stand to be looked at and fits of rage that left none around him untouched? With both states further isolating him from everyone around him? More than even the artificial shell Hanzo had condemned him to had?

 

Hanzo swallowed thickly and tried to keep the dark ruminations from overtaking him while the cowboy was still here by focusing on one key injustice in the here and now: his brother’s past conduct was causing his strike commander and his friend to misjudge him now. That could not be allowed.

 

“I do not know what exactly Genji has told you,” he said quietly and resolutely, “but I want it understood that I was entirely in the wrong. Genji approached me rationally and calmly and did nothing to escalate the situation. I did, and then I further worsened matters by abandoning him and my comm so I could compromise myself and possibly the entire team had anyone attacked. I want that to be clear to both yourself and Commander Winston, Agent McCree: Genji did nothing to warrant or cause my behavior.”

 

Silence descended for a few breaths. Hanzo kept his eyes on the cowboy’s face, watching his reaction. At first there was very little to see--the cowboy had gone expressionless while Hanzo spoke, and he did not move much after--there was only a small crease between his eyebrows, giving him a slight contemplative air.

 

Finally, with a small sigh, the cowboy said, “Alright, I’ll pass that on t’Winston. But I don’ think that changes much, t’be honest.”

 

“Whatever Genji’s past conduct,” said Hanzo immediately, “you must not allow _my_ actions to cast doubt on him. That would be wholly undeserved. _That_ is what I want most understood.”

 

Understanding spread across the cowboy’s face. “I getcha,” he said. “If that’s what you’re worried about, I’ll make sure Winston understands.” But then he leaned forward with a rather intense look. Hanzo had to fight the urge to clench his fists in preparation for a physical strike or to push the cowboy away. He also had to fight to keep his surprise from being obvious when the cowboy said, “But if it had been--naw, wait a minute, let me get my words straightened out.”

 

The cowboy set his comm on the table and tapped on the table with a single metal digit, the sound ringing in the silent room for a few moments. Hanzo could now almost physically see the thoughts drifting across the cowboy’s face, a pronounced frown warping his lips that eased a little after a minute or two, but his voice was still serious when he spoke again. “If he ever _does_ do something, or you do something, or you _both_ do something that could compromise the team, intentionally or accidentally, you gotta tell me or Winston, alright? When you’re on your own time, you can do what you need t’get your head on straight again, but if something happens during a mission, we need t’know so we can work around it, or separate you two, or whatever needs t’happen.”

 

He stopped and considered Hanzo for a moment, his eyes lingering on Hanzo’s stonelike face. “But right now,” he said, his voice considerably softer, “I think both Winston and I are gonna write this off as part of the adjustment process for something that nobody really knows how t’deal with. I think--” He paused and swallowed before pushing on. “I think maybe you should do the same. We can all just--do our best t’learn what we can and do better next time. Does that--sound doable?”

 

Hanzo could not keep his lips from pursing slightly, but there was little to be said. As far as the problem concerned Overwatch, it was a sensible demand. That the problem was an order of magnitude larger for Hanzo personally hardly mattered--he could only do what he could to minimize it for everyone around him. So, he nodded and said, “As you wish, Agent McCree.”

 

The cowboy’s lips thinned, but otherwise he nodded to accept Hanzo’s words. “Alright, then, let’s leave it at that for now. We got a big mission tomorrow, and not a lotta time t’sleep beforehand.” He stood, wincing as one of his joints popped loudly enough for Hanzo to hear, and waved. “Good night, Agent Shimada. I got my midnight snack with me again and Tor sleeps like a log--don’ worry about anyone disturbin’ ya.”

 

Hanzo frowned. “Will there be no shift change?”

 

“Between Tor’s turrets and Athena’s drones, Winston’s ordered all of us t’focus on gettin’ rest before tomorrow,” the cowboy explained. “But both Mei and Pharah’ll be sleepin’ in the common room with Ms. Vaswani, and all three of us will be sleepin’ fully dressed in case something happens. Kinda works against the whole gettin’ rested thing, but you can only get what you get sometimes.”

 

“I see,” said Hanzo. He was not altogether satisfied with that--Ms. Vaswani could very well have shared her information in order to distract and disarm them in preparation for a Vishkar attack during the night, but he was not about to criticize anything when he merited so much criticism himself at the moment, so he could only attempt to put it out of his mind.

 

He rose to his feet and went to his suitcase to retrieve a change of clothes. He turned to see the cowboy still watching him.

 

“Uh--” he said, a little sheepishly. “You gonna take them pills, or--”

 

Hanzo glanced down at the bottle still clutched in his hand, partially covered by the clothes draped over his arm.

 

He felt a burst of both derision and suspicion: a little bit of derision from the cowboy “mothering” him--

 

\--and a _lot_ of suspicion from seeming so intent that he take the pills. They had come from the _cowboy,_ after all, and who knows where he had gotten them--

 

\--but it was just as likely that the cowboy had merely witnessed too many examples of Hanzo refusing assistance of any kind until it was forced upon him. And, again, he was unlikely to take him out right when _Hanzo’s_ assistance was needed--

 

\--but he _had_ proven before that he thought Hanzo was a bigger liability to Overwatch than their enemies, and there were several substitutes available if Hanzo was incapacitated the night before the mission.

 

This new thought--and the fact that it _was_ new, that he had not thought of this possible danger when it had first appeared--was disturbing.

 

He glanced at his cello case and the bottle of nanites that Dr. Ziegler had provided, a proven benign source--

 

\--assuming no one had tampered with it. There had been ample opportunity to do so.

 

The cowboy was waiting for an answer, and it was clear he had noted Hanzo’s hesitance, though it had lasted barely two seconds as his brain whirred at breakneck speed. His face fell, just a little bit, before it tightened back under firmer control. “It’s just--” he began to say.

 

“I already have some of Dr. Ziegler’s nanites,” blurted Hanzo, wincing at the inelegant outburst but standing firmly behind it. “She gave them to me in the Orca on the way to Aomori--they were for pain, but Athena tells me they are ‘broad-spectrum’. Are they--do you know if they are the same as these?”

 

The cowboy’s expression hardly changed except for a slight droop in his lips and eyes, and Hanzo knew instantly that he was not the slightest bit misled. But when he replied, he, too, spoke nonchalantly. “I don’ rightly know. Athena?” he asked, looking down to address his comm as he tapped at the screen. “Do you happen to know if the nanites in the first aid kit are the same as what Agent Shimada’s got?”

 

“Agent Shimada’s express permission is required before any medical data can be given,” Athena said primly. “Via his own comm, please.”

 

Wincing again at the formality and added complication to this rapidly deteriorating and awkward situation, Hanzo withdrew his comm to find a prompt for a handscan to confirm his permission. He gave it, grateful to have something to focus on other than the cowboy. Once the scan was complete, Athena said, “Yes, Agent McCree. The broad-spectrum nanites in Agent Shimada’s possession are identical to the nanites in the first aid kits. Dr. Ziegler went through them and replaced and updated their contents soon after she arrived.”

 

The cowboy opened his mouth to say something, but Hanzo, desiring nothing more than to end the conversation, held out the bottle to him. “Then there is no need to deplete your kit. I will use some of my own.”

 

The cowboy was still for a moment--then he reached out and accepted the bottle. “For sure, Agent Shimada,” he said evenly. “Gotta conserve resources.”

 

“Indeed,” replied Hanzo. He made to move past the cowboy, but the cowboy held out a hand.

 

“W-wait,” he said, the evenness evaporating. He glanced at the comm in his hand--Athena’s symbol filled the screen, indicating that she was still listening. He looked back up at Hanzo and said, “Just--don’ forget t’take ‘em. We all gotta be at our best come tomorrow.”

 

Hanzo nodded. “I understand.”

 

“Good, good,” said the cowboy with a tiny nod. “Well. Good night, Agent Shimada.” And he very deliberately turned and marched down the hallway and into his bedroom, clicking the door softly yet decisively behind him.

 

Hanzo recognized what the cowboy was doing--leaving Hanzo alone so as to give him the opportunity to follow his order.

 

And, as he looked at his own comm in his hand, he had little choice but to follow it, given that Athena was listening and would surely understand that it _was_ an order and not a suggestion. With a small sigh, he turned and knelt at his cello case, setting his clothing aside and retrieving the heavy amber bottle. He could not help looking it over as the large pills inside gently clicked around inside, but there was nothing to indicate whether the bottle had been tampered with, though as far as he could tell it had not been moved since he last touched it. That had been days and days ago, however, and he could not be sure his memory was reliable enough to--

 

“Agent Shimada?” Athena broke gently into his thoughts. “If it is any help, my spyders have not registered anyone touching any of your possessions.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips, but of course the superintelligent AI could not help but accurately gauge the situation. “Of course, Athena,” he said, and, taking comfort that at the very least Athena may hold a record of him taking the pills if anything were to befall him after (and ignoring the thought that the cowboy potentially had access to her memory banks and could erase or alter the records), he popped off the lid, scooped out two pills, and popped them into his mouth, swallowing first one than the other.

 

He immediately regretted the lack of a swallow of water with each--but it had been important to get the deed over with as soon as possible.

 

He grabbed at his bottle on the table and took a few quick swallows to send the pills working painfully down his throat on their way before he regathered his clothing and set off for the basement. It would be an early day tomorrow, and there would be little time for bathing--and he needed to get off all this wretched treesap off his skin.

 

And once again Dr. Ziegler’s nanites did their work so quickly yet subtly that he was not sure when the gathering pulsing pain faded away--along with the stubborn dryness in his throat and a general sense of malaise that he had not noted until it was gone.

 

And with it came a surprisingly amount of fatigue, which set his mind fretting until he realized that he had walked at least fifteen kilometers today--he may be fit, but that was more than he was used to.

 

More than his stubs were used to as well. He tapped at the metal covering his knees when the thought occurred to him in the middle of wiping himself down. After such a long day and before such a critical mission, it would be best to sleep legless--but this new surge of paranoia had not yet abetted, so it might really be a question of whether he wanted to air out his stubs or sleep.

 

He decided that sleep was more important, but he rather reluctantly yet capriciously admitted to himself that he was likely to return to Gibraltar after this mission, at least on a temporary basis. If he did, then the doctor would likely insist on attending to him. It pained him to take advantage of her stubborn professionalism, though--perhaps if he was otherwise uninjured he would be able to avoid her long enough for his stubs to heal on their own.

 

He should not be going to Gibraltar at all, but it was highly unlikely that Overwatch could afford to drop him off anywhere in Japan after such a dangerous mission under the noses of both the UN and the JSDF. At any rate, he certainly could not stay in Ainu-Mosir. He had one other cache here, but it was dedicated more to the preservation of a 3D printer than creature comforts, and between the arrival of Ms. Vaswani and the presence of Talon and/or Vishkar, the entire island was no longer the sanctuary it once was.

 

At least at present. Hanzo was not abandoning the 3D printer cache and everything in it just yet--it may be years before his trail was cold enough to safely return, but it may yet be possible. It might even be possible sooner if he tipped off the Ainu--if they knew their homeland had been breached by terrorists or a megacorporation or both, they could be relied upon to do their best to drive them out, by raising a ruckus if nothing else. If so, perhaps after only a year or two--

 

Hanzo frowned. Why was he planning for years into the future? He may very well die tomorrow.

 

He finished washing himself, doing his best to dry his hair before tying it in a bun to avoid getting too many tangles in the night, and redressed. He paused at the foot of the stairs, looking around in the pitch black darkness, frowning. If he was leaving soon, his habit was to make sure that everything was put away and tidy--but such was always in preparation for his return, which would not happen.

 

But the force of habit did not always answer to change, even as fatigued as he was.

 

So, if only to calm the irrational urge, he set his toiletries bag on the first step, flipped on the lights and made a quick inspection--and was surprised to see much less than there should be. Several boxes of equipment were missing, mostly building materials and tools meant for repairing the roof or walls if one were to collapse during a blizzard.

 

But the laundry tub was also gone, which was odd--could Overwatch currently not do its laundry?

 

It was disconcerting to see so much disappear, but Hanzo had been preparing himself for this moment even if he had not predicted the timing. So he squashed down the pangs from the sight of the empty shelves, fastidiously reorganized what was left on the highest shelves in case a pipe burst, and checked to see if anything else was worth bringing--but there was nothing.

 

He turned off the lights, scooped up his toiletries, and climbed up the stairs, not sparing a backward glance for the room, however much his sentimentality demanded it.

 

At the very least he was now better prepared for what he would see if he had an opportunity to check the bedrooms in the morning--even more would be gone from those. The Overwatch agents were probably celebrating having much more floor space to sleep on--he wondered if Agent D.Va in particular would manage to spread out her personal effects even more before she had to pack them all up come morning.

 

He went back into the common room, put away everything that he would not need, and checked over everything he would, most particularly Storm Bow. Satisfied with its readiness, he dug his comm out of his pocket and check the secure messaging app to find the information about Widowmaker the cowboy had promised.

 

There was not much of it, and it only confirmed what he had already heard of her, except for the fact that she had infrared sensors with unknown range and sensitivity.

 

That was unfortunate.

 

He placed the comm on the floor next to his bedroll and looked about the room for anything last minute that might catch his eye. The ammunition crates he had helped Agent Mei bring in were still gathered around the piano--none of them had been moved yet. He supposed that the Overwatch agents were keeping their ammo close at hand until the very last moment--many of those crates would likely go with them or be moved to the ladies’ hut before the mission started.

 

Then his eyes rested on the piano itself for a moment too long.

 

He stood with Storm Bow and his quiver in his hands, strode to his bedroll, set them carefully down next to it, lay down, and wrapped himself up, rolling over to face the wall and away from everything else.

 

And whether it was from sheer exhaustion, physical or otherwise, or from the cowboy’s reassurances about Athena’s vigilance or the lack of movement around him, a combination of everything, or no reason at all, he fell asleep and slept so deep that not even a dream broke through the oblivion he had found at last.

 

It really was astounding how deep and undisturbed it was. When the insistent chirp of his comm found his consciousness at last, dragging him back into reality from a place where time had no meaning, it was almost like opening the door of a sensory-deprivation chamber--the sudden burst of awareness was almost painful.

 

He opened his eyes to find a bright red rectangle of light greeting him. He stared at it without comprehension for a few moments before his brain registered it as his comm. Athena was trying to wake him.

 

The sleep had been deep and beneficial yet still far from adequate, but if it was time, it was time. He untangled a limb from his sheets and reached over to the comm. The chirping noise silenced as soon as he touched it, and the red screen faded to Athena’s stylized logo.

 

“Good morning, Agent Shimada. The time is 0302. T minus one hour, fifty-seven minutes until mission commencement.”

 

Hanzo blinked at Athena’s tone, more brusque and official-sounding than he had ever heard, but it was effective at rousing him. He sat up and worked out the pops in his joints one by one. The surrounding darkness was still silent, but somehow he was certain that everyone in the homestead had received the same message.

 

It was the last opportunity to prepare.

 

He dragged himself out of his blankets and disassembled his bed roll, folding up the blankets in a neat pile before standing and moving smoothly into a _kata_ primed for increasing his circulation, flexibility, and wakefulness, stretching out his limbs and back and muscles with practiced, effortless movements in the darkness. When he finished, he knelt in _seiza_ before the table and bowed his head. He did not know how much time there was to meditate, but he could feel how unsure and unbalanced he was in the wake of his actions the previous day, and he would take all that there was to correct it before the battle.

 

He breathed in and out slowly, dismissing distracting thoughts as they appeared and centering only on what was pertinent, on what would help him survive the day, willing himself to leave the past and the future to themselves for as long as possible.

 

It was hard to tell how much time passed, but it was a non-trivial amount--when he heard the first stirrings of life coming from the hallway, he was feeling far more ready to face the challenges the day would bring, big and small.

 

The lights snapped on in the kitchen, and the cowboy appeared. He was dressed in an earthy brown jumpsuit with chaps already covering his legs and cowboy boots on his feet. They were currently silent. He did not have his chest armor nor his cape on, and he carried his hat in his hand--the ensemble looked strangely incomplete.

 

The cowboy saw him immediately and nodded with a serious expression. “Mornin’.”

 

“Good morning, Agent McCree,” said Hanzo with an equally serious nod. “What needs to be done?”

 

“At the moment, just fuelin’ up,” said the cowboy as he opened the cupboards and retrieved two MREs. From this angle, Hanzo could not see the interior of the cupboard, but he was sure it was once more barren, except for perhaps one more MRE for Agent Torbjörn. The homestead had emptied out quickly in his absence. “Soon as everyone’s full up, we’ll start gettin’ the hovercycles ready. In thirty minutes we’ll load up Song’s MEKA on the trailer, rendezvous with the Orca and fly out.”

 

“Very well,” said Hanzo, not moving as the cowboy set an MRE in front of him. He tore it open and once more selected the most calorie- and nutrient-dense fare. He was amassing energy and chocolate bars in his cello case, but he would go through a little of it just before they touched down in the vicinity of the Omnium--and if he survived, his body would need something afterward as well.

 

The cowboy sat crosslegged across from him with his own meal, setting his hat on the table. He eyed Hanzo for a moment with something resembling hesitance. Hanzo pursed his lips at the sight of it--he could guess what the cowboy wanted to ask. “I took Dr. Ziegler’s nanites last night, Agent McCree,” he said, trying not to sound petulant or accusatory. “I will take more when I have finished my meal.”

 

The cowboy nodded, an iota of sheepishness creeping into his face. “That’s good, but I, uh--had something else on my mind.” He rubbed at the side of his face for a moment, then he said more resolutely, “Out in the field we’re gonna be a little more--informal.”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow slightly.

 

“The main thing is that there ain’ no time for titles in the middle of a fight,” continued the cowboy, tapping his metal fingers on the table. “So--I won’ be sayin’ Agent This and Agent That. I’ll just be usin’ names. I just, uh--I just wanted t’let you know beforehand that I don’ mean no disrespect by it. Not, uh--not this time around.”

 

Hanzo’s eyebrow twitched a little higher before he made it settle back in place. This was an odd thing to clarify before a battle. He had suspected that the cowboy knew perfectly well that the way he had addressed Hanzo in the first few weeks of his “service” was disrespectful at best, which had been all but confirmed when the cowboy determinedly started to call him “Agent Shimada” after--after that first panic attack on the Orca, when Hanzo had snapped at him not to use his given name.

 

But nowadays, after seeing how the cowboy behaved with others, it seemed referring to him with no title had almost been an insult of convenience--the cowboy was informal by nature or by design with everyone. He had been aware of insulting Hanzo, no question, but it must have been convenient that treating Hanzo disrespectfully had fallen in so neatly with how the cowboy acted generally.

 

Thus, even if the cowboy had dropped the title in the midst of combat without explanation, Hanzo doubted he would have taken it as definite proof of an insult. As a _possible_ insult, surely, but not a definite one unless the cowboy had suddenly started using titles with everyone else.

 

But after Hanzo’s display of distrust the night before, perhaps it was no surprise the cowboy was covering all his bases, just in case.

 

“I understand, Agent McCree,” he said. “I do not expect you to waste even a half-second on unnecessary formality.”

 

The cowboy smiled a bit, looking relieved but with a edge of something--bitter? “Oh, for sure, but I wanted t’be clear on that, given our history. I ain’ got the luxury of leavin’ things t’chance anymore.”

 

Hanzo did not know how to reply to that, so he only inclined his head in acknowledgement. After that, they ate in silence as Hanzo pondered the cowboy’s words. The cowboy, on the other hand, concentrated on the main courses much as Hanzo did, but he also ate an energy bar to help support his larger frame. He took his comm out as he ate, and he could hardly take a bite before something new flashed up on the screen that apparently needed his attention since he rapidly tapped at the screen each time, but somehow he managed to keep up with Hanzo.

 

They finished at the same time, and the cowboy rose and took Hanzo’s garbage to the trashbag. Hanzo, meanwhile, stood and squatted next to his cello case to gather his battlegear: lightning-embossed _kyudo-gi,_ fishscale _hakama,_ and utility belt. He stuffed all the chocolate and energy bars into one of the packs that rode on his hip next to his gourd. Lastly he shook out two of the nanite pills out of their bottle. He stood and turned to see the cowboy watching him. He raised an eyebrow when they made eye contact, inviting the cowboy to speak--he seemed to have something to say.

 

“I got all my stuff packed up, and they moved pretty much everything out yesterday. You’re welcome to use the bedroom t’get ready if you like.”

 

“Thank you,” he said simply with a small bow of the head as he filled his gourd from the jug before straightening and going off to the bedroom.

 

The cowboy’s possessions were indeed packed away into three duffel bags sitting next to the door; otherwise, the room contained only two crates. It had been a long, long time since it had been so empty, and Hanzo was struck by memories of when he had found and scouted out this place and entered this room for the first time.

 

For whatever reason, the previous owners had also kept this room empty. The other bedroom had been in a half-ransacked state, with a bureau and standalone closet with doors half-open and an unmade futon on the floor. This room, however, had obviously not been used for some time even before the Crisis. There were no clues as to why--virtually all of the personal effects had apparently made it out with their owners.

 

Now the mystery presented itself one last time, but there even less means to solve it now, and no impetus whatsoever to do so. It was just--an underlying property of the room, uncovered when the crates had been carried out.

 

Hanzo dressed quickly, threading his arms through both sleeves of his _kyudo-gi_ for now and tying his _obi_ before swallowing the nanite pills once again with a few gulps of water, trying to ignore the feeling of unknown history that had crept into the room to refill the space.

 

Just as he was finishing, he heard Agent Torbjörn noisily leave his room and go into the common room, loudly greeting the cowboy and asking for updates. Eager to hear them, if any, he quickly folded his clothes and draped them over his arm and went out--and almost ran into the cowboy, who had a hand raised to knock on the door. “Whoa there!” he said, stepping back. He had donned both his chestplate and his cape--his look was complete except for his hat. “Was just comin’ t’get ya. Song’s on her way over.” He paused. “By the by, I don’ think we ever worked out what t’do with your hovercycle. You’re welcome t’bring it along--there ain’ really time t’drive it someplace t’pick up later.”

 

Hanzo flattened his lips--he, too, had not thought to consider what to do with the hovercycle. He had gone too far into the mentality that everything on the homestead was going to be abandoned. Had he not been a fool the day before, the time would have been far better spent dropping it off in some sheltered spot, as the cowboy said. But if it came with them, it was likely to end up in Gibraltar as well, which meant it would eventually have to be brought--

 

Leave the future to itself for the time being.

 

“Yes, that would be best,” he said as he passed the cowboy and went to the jug on the kitchen counter to refill his gourd.

 

“We might hafta get creative, then,” the cowboy said conversationally as he followed Hanzo into the kitchen after a short delay, carrying his duffel bags. “You’ve given us a lot of good stuff--Orca’s nearly stuffed full.”

 

“If it is inconvenient or impossible, there is no need to--”

 

“Naw, we can do it! We can do it,” the cowboy interrupted hurriedly. “Course we can do it, wouldn’ have asked if we couldn’. Athena says we can, and ain’ nobody better than her at cargo Tetris.” He paused. “Though Song gives her a run for her money sometimes.”

 

“I see,” said Hanzo, and he went out to the common room with the cowboy following.

 

Agent Torbjörn looked up from his MRE as they entered. “Good morning,” he said, voice a little rougher than usual. “You feeling ready?” he asked as Hanzo sipped at his gourd.

 

“So far as it is possible,” said Hanzo heavily.

 

Agent Torbjörn threw his head back and barked a laugh. “Ah, just as dour as I expected,” he said, looking back at Hanzo with an almost maniacal grin. “Work on that pre-battle attitude, boy, it won’t go over very well. We prefer reckless hubris over cynicism, or at least some optimistic determination. If you were betting on being the team cynic, don’t. We don’t need any. _Right,_ McCree?”

 

“I ain’ a cynic,” grumbled the cowboy as he went around the table and dropped his duffel bags by the front door. “I just wanna get things done, and done right.”

 

“And isn’t that something to take pride in?” asked the engineer, waving a chocolate bar at the cowboy. “Something to be excited about?”

 

“Sure, but it’s a lot easier t’be excited about gettin’ out alive after the fact,” said the cowboy, though the ghost of a smile was beginning to appear. “Right now there’s too much important stuff t’worry about. I might lose my hat, today, Tor. My _hat.”_

 

Agent Torbjörn nodded gravely. “I spent all night thinking of your hat, too, McCree. Bring him back to me.”

 

The cowboy chuckled. “Don’ you try t’butter him up none. He knows he’s playin’ second fiddle t’your turrets. He won’ get his heart broken a fifth time.”

 

A knock came from the door. Agent Torbjörn, chortling, stood to get it even though he was still eating. “Come in, come in,” he said, opening the door wide. “We’re teaching Agent Shimada proper banter.”

 

“Hm. I’m told I need lessons myself,” said Agent Pharah flatly as she stepped inside. “I’ve got the trailer set up and the supplies on the two Overwatch hovercycles. Are you taking Agent Shimada’s, too?”

 

Hanzo breathed out a small relieved puff of air from his nose. He had listened to the “proper banter” with more disbelief than anything else, and it was grounding to have a more “cynical” person enter the room.

 

For as long as it lasted.

 

“Because I want that cowboy laundry out of here and safely sealed in the hold ASAP,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the cowboy’s duffel bags. “The Orca’s still rated for transporting biohazards, right?”

 

“Har har,” said the cowboy with a roll of his eyes. “Not my fault laundry day was gonna be today. But the answer’s yeah, we’re takin’ Agent Shimada’s cycle along. If you’re ready,” he said, turning to Hanzo, “we can go and get it ready.”

 

“Of course, Agent McCree,” he replied, his tone sounding excessively formal compared to everyone else’s, even to him. He understood banter and why it happened, of course--he had heard it many times among his former Shimada underlings when he was young, and Genji--

 

Hanzo’s hands involuntarily curled into fists.

 

The cowboy opened the door and gestured for Hanzo to proceed him, and Agent Pharah turned right around without having to wipe off her feet. The sky was pitchblack above them without a single star to lend its light, so Agent Pharah and the cowboy broke out their red flashlights. Hanzo stiffened for a moment when he spied a figure in the very edge of their dim glow--but it was only Agent D.Va, waiting by the eastern garage.

 

“Sup,” she called over when they headed over and she was better illuminated, revealing that she was dressed in the same jumpsuit she had worn in India, though the colors were muted in the red light. Despite the casual word, if anyone were the “team cynic”, it might be Agent D.Va. She sounded extremely serious. “How are we doing this?” she asked as they approached.

 

“We’re takin’ Agent Shimada’s bike with us,” said the cowboy. “So let’s get all of ‘em out and get everything loaded.”

 

“Roger,” she replied, and she fixed Hanzo with a hard stare. “MEKA is property of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces. Non-authorized military personnel and civilians are not permitted to access any MEKA systems in whole or in part, directly or remotely. Any attempt to do so is grounds for immediate deterrent action up to and including physical force, pursuant to the United Nations Framework for Mutual Defence of 2051, Article 10. Physical contact is permitted only with the express permission and under the direct supervision of the MEKA operator, Corporal Hana Song. Do you understand?”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo without missing a beat.

 

She narrowed her eyes slightly, nodded, did an aboutface and opened up the one-piece panel door.

 

The red glow of the flashlights fell across the dark hovercycles, two on one side of the garage with Hanzo’s on the other side. In-between stood the MEKA itself, sitting podlike on the ground upon its own folded legs. It looked, rather inappropriately given the serious legal jargon concerning its protection, like a topheavy and brooding flightless bird more than anything else, with stabilizing fins sticking out of its top and sides like puffed out feathers. Its stature was further diminished by its color--Hanzo could not tell what color it was, really, but it may have been white judging from the way it glowed almost painfully under the red flashlights.

 

Agent Pharah, the cowboy, and Hanzo all took charge of a bike and brought them out under the watchful eye of Agent D.Va. Hanzo did his best to avoid even looking at the MEKA--he was sure to be the most suspect person to have been allowed near it outside of combat. Its eyewatering color, however, made his avoidance more of a blessing than anything.

 

Once Hanzo set his hovercycle on the ground, he moved back into the garage and opened up a crate tucked away into a corner. Within were several bundles of arrows sorted by type and tied together with Velcro. He took several bundles out, took them to the hovercycle and strapped them onto one side. He stood and saw the cowboy watching. Agent Pharah had gone around the garage to retrieve the trailer, which was apparently leaning against the back wall. “This will be all I require,” he said. “I can carry more supplies if needed.”

 

“Oh, uh--how about my ammo bag?” the cowboy replied. “That’ll mean more pullin’ power for the MEKA. You mind grabbin’ it from inside?” Hanzo shook his head. “It’ll be the one with the Lucheng logo you can hardly see.” Hanzo bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement and returned to the house.

 

He knocked twice before he entered to avoid startling Agent Torbjörn, who was still sitting at the table picking through his MRE. He watched Hanzo enter, and a strange gleam appeared in his blue eye when Hanzo closed the door behind him. He did not speak, however, until Hanzo was done wiping his feet off--though Hanzo wondered at his own actions. There was very little reason to care about the carpets at this late stage, after all.

 

“So,” said Agent Torbjörn when Hanzo stood to pick up the cowboy’s duffel bag.

 

“Yes, Agent Torbjörn?” asked Hanzo when the engineer paused, as though scrutinizing Hanzo or gathering his thoughts.

 

“What’s yer gameplan?” asked Agent Torbjörn, blunt once he had decided what to say. “With dealing with Genji during the mission, I mean.”

 

Hanzo set his jaw for a moment and willed his face not to contort too much under the sudden question.

 

Whatever his face _did_ do, however, seemed to amuse and concern Agent Torbjörn simultaneously, if his twisted smile was anything to judge by. “It won’t be the first time there’s been bad blood between teammates during a mission,” he said, leaning forward on the table with one elbow crushing an empty cardboard container. “But there’s bad blood and there’s bad blood, and apparently something happened yesterday which was enough to make both you and Genji run for the hills. What’re you planning to do to keep that from affecting the mission?”

 

Hanzo felt the pressure build on his teeth as his jaw tightened, so he forced it to relax before he spoke. “That depends entirely on Genji,” he said quietly. “I was in the wrong, so I plan to defer to him. I prepared myself this morning to conform to his needs and wishes. Otherwise--” There was no “otherwise”. Hanzo had not really thought that far ahead. “--otherwise,” he said, thinking hard, “I plan to keep my distance to avoid disturbing him before or during the mission.”

 

“Alright,” said Agent Torbjörn neutrally, but it seemed to Hanzo that he was not particularly impressed. “That takes care of Genji--what about you? What’re you going to do about you?”

 

Hanzo stared at him for a few moments, but the engineer did not elaborate. Finally Hanzo said, “I am not sure what you are asking.”

 

The engineer huffed. “It’s good that yer thinking of how to keep Genji’s mind on the mission. Both of you ended up running from each other, you know, so that’s a valid concern to address, but it’s only half the problem. How’re you planning to keep _yer_ mind on the mission?” he stressed.

 

Hanzo continued to stare at him.

 

What concern was it of _his_ to ask how Hanzo would care for himself in battle? He had done so for a decade with no resources but his own--there was no question that Hanzo was capable. He nearly opened his mouth to offer just such a retort, but his brain luckily, _mercifully,_ caught up with him before he could embarrass himself.

 

He may have taken care of himself for ten years--but Genji had not been a major distraction for eight.

 

Those first two years had been, by far, the most perilous, when Hanzo had been discovered many times by the clan, most of which had been due to foolish, almost amateur mistakes.

 

He had not thought on those dark times for a long while out of both shame and cowardice, but on the rare occasions he had--

 

\--it was clear that the specter of Genji had been ever-present, and it had unquestionably affected both his thinking and his actions.

 

How much would the specter affect him now that it had returned?

 

He almost knelt down under the heavy thought--if only he thought of this beforehand, when there was time to consider and, perhaps, prepare--if preparation was possible.

 

But there was not.

 

But--there _had_ been, and he had _not_ wasted it.

 

“This morning,” he said, almost too softly to be heard, “I meditated, as I always do if I have the opportunity before a job. I attempt to concentrate on the here and the now, on that which is necessary moment-to-moment, and leave the rest to itself under afterwards, if--” He stopped himself before he revealed too much of his cynicism--Agent Torbjörn would likely not approve. “Since there is nothing that can be done to--relieve this tension between Genji and myself, I will do my best to leave it by the wayside until a more appropriate time.” And it would take his best effort. It was fortunate that that had been pointed out, intentionally or not, before Hanzo was blindsided.

 

Agent Torbjörn visibly relaxed after Hanzo finished speaking. “Good,” he said with a vigorous nod. “I was hoping to hear something like that. Keep your mind on the mission, nothing more, nothing less. You have people depending on you--do whatever it takes not to let them down.”

 

Hanzo had to suppress a weary sigh. It had been taxing to admit his penchant for failure to Agent Mei, but at least her expectations might be more reasonable now. Agent Torbjörn, on the other hand, apparently expected a much higher standard, which felt more familiar but no more attainable.

 

But there was only way to respond.

 

“I will not falter,” he said.

 

Agent Torbjörn looked at him closely for a few seconds--and seemed satisfied. “Alright. Now go get the job done,” he said with a little shooing motion. “Good luck.”

 

Hanzo nodded and picked up the cowboy’s ammo bag. Several objects inside clicked against each other as he hefted it onto his shoulder opposite his quiver. He turned and left the house without a further word, determined to project a determined air.

 

He was just in time to see the MEKA in action for the first time. Agent D.Va entered it from behind as he approached the garage and joined the cowboy and Agent Pharah off to one side. The windshield was opaque in the darkness, so it was impossible to tell what she was doing in there, but the MEKA powered up with a quiet whirring noise and rose to its feet in a single fluid motion. It presented a somewhat paradoxical nature as it walked forward--it moved as smoothly as an animal, balanced on its hind legs in birdlike manner, but the noises it made were overwhelmingly mechanical from the whirring of its servos to the heavy clanking of its feet. It was also obviously immensely heavy; as it approached the trailer, there were several sharp cracks and crunches as it crushed loose gravel and concrete under its feet.

 

But it leapt easily, almost lightly onto the trailer, and Agent D.Va knew her business well enough to land in the exact center. The trailer hardly wobbled at all, but the antigrav pods whined and protested under the sudden mass, and the trailer almost hit the ground before they could compensate. But they did, and the trailer rose to its original height as the MEKA folded itself back into its resting position.

 

After that, things moved quickly. Agent D.Va did not exit the MEKA--she would ride inside, ready to spring into action if anything happened enroute. For her sake, the other Overwatch agents and Hanzo strapped the rest of the random baggage to the hovercycles as fast as they could. Before they left, Agent Pharah produced infrared goggles for Hanzo--only for Hanzo to take his infrared glasses out of his utility belt, the same ones he had used in Watchpoint: Niigata.

 

“Nice,” she said. Then, with a small tilt of her head, “You even managed to get some that look a little bit cool. We look like aviator rejects.” Hanzo raised an eyebrow but otherwise did not comment as he slipped the infrared glasses and inserted his earpiece--but her assessment was accurate. They looked more like Agent Tracer’s goggles than anything, except far bulkier and with thick black lenses that made both the cowboy and Agent Pharah look like aliens or insects.

 

“Go ahead of us,” the cowboy ordered Hanzo. “Keep an eye out for anything that looks fishy. Otherwise, just head straight for the Orca.”

 

Despite the cowboy’s warning, Hanzo saw and heard nothing of note on the journey through the darkness. It was a relief to have the headlights turned off--otherwise the little convoy would have been a sitting duck for even the most amateur and low-tech enemy for kilometers around. As it was, the world whipped past in shades of green and black with the occasional splotch of white revealing an animal, but they were always too far to be readily identifiable.

 

Hanzo tried not to think too much of the colony or its members every time he saw a white splotch.

 

They followed the same route they had taken the Vishkar agent for her walkabout. It took only a few minutes to arrive at the mouth of the wide valley leading down from the flanks of Mount Tuk-a-chi. Where the road turned to trace out its mouth was another smaller dirt road that was little more than two tracks leading off towards the northeast--it was so old that wheeled vehicles had once used it. The cowboy prompted Hanzo to turn down that way over his earpiece, perhaps forgetting that Overwatch had run the Orca’s position past him in case he knew of a better location. In any event, Hanzo had little trouble leading them into the forest that filled the valley, following the twin tracks as they approached and then paralleled a large stream produced by the volcanic springs that dotted the valley.

 

The stream had dug out a fairly large gulch for its size through the volcanic soil, and soon its walls had risen up around them, steep and covered in vines and shrubs. The tracks twisted around a sharp bend in the valley, and immediately after stood the Orca, hidden among a grove of tall conifers that loomed over the large aircraft and shielded it on all but one side with their thick branches.

 

The hatch was already open, yawning black in the infrared between the hot white rectangles of its engines, and the cargo hold ramp was barely visible under the Orca’s nose.

 

Genji was waiting.

 

Not alone, Hanzo saw to his simultaneous relief and apprehension. The Omnic monk and Agent Tracer were with him, waiting in a huddle at the foot of the cargo bay ramp. Agent Tracer, much like the animals, was mostly white, except where her aviator jacket and goggles blocked the heat. The Omnic monk, on the other hand, was a solid white block marking his torso with small white dots and lines marking the servos along his limbs, skeleton-like in the infrared glasses.

 

And Genji--

 

Hanzo swallowed as he brought the hovercycle to a slow stop beside the hatch ramp to allow room for Agent Pharah and the cowboy to maneuver the trailer and MEKA. He breathed deep, in and out, in and out, in a calming and centering exercise.

 

Genji was, predictably enough, an amalgam of both Agent Tracer and the Omnic monk’s infrared signatures. His limbs--three of his limbs had the same dots and lines revealing the position of the motors and artificial muscles of his prosthetics--but he glowed white, surprisingly white, from his left arm and his head and his chest--

 

\--there was a black space laced with thin white veins--

 

\--and then solid white once more from about the top of his pelvis to mid-thigh.

 

Forgiveness really was impossible, he thought dimly and distantly.

 

Then he shook himself. This was exactly the sort of thing Agent Torbjörn had warned him of--though he doubted the engineer had foreseen _this_ particular revelation. But it was something best left for later, if later ever came.

 

It was clear that the battle might as well start here.

 

He sucked in a deep breath.

 

_Ignore all distractions._

 

And out, willing Genji, his shame, everything before and after the battle to flow away into the surrounding darkness.

 

_My aim is true._

 

He could faintly hear the other hovercycles’ engines whirr and whine as they approached and began to inch the trailer closer to the Orca--and the crunch of three pairs of footsteps as the welcoming party moved forward.

 

_It is time to act._

 

He swept the glasses off, thrust them into his utility belt, and swung himself off the hovercycle and onto the ground, leaving it to hover so it could be easily guided into the cargo hold once he knew where to put it. He approached the trio of Overwatch agents waiting, but slowly, ostensibly to stay out of the way while Agent Pharah and the cowboy guided the trailer closer to the Orca.

 

The trailer came to a stop and the MEKA stood and literally hopped off, landing gracefully on the ground with a thump that echoed among the trees and valley walls before Agent D.Va walked it to the Orca--to the main hatch rather than the cargo bay, surprisingly enough. She went up and into the Orca confidently as the interior lights came on to greet her. No one stopped her, and so Hanzo turned on his heel to go back and retrieve his hovercycle.

 

Guiding it by the handlebars, he brought it to the little group at last--but thankfully the cowboy and Agent Pharah had gotten there first.

 

“--on the up and up!” Agent Tracer finished saying, sounding energetic and cheerful even given the early hour. “The Orca’s fuelled up and ready to go. Let’s get everything loaded and take off!”

 

“Sounds like a plan,” replied the cowboy goodnaturedly. He turned to Agent Pharah. “C’mon, let’s get everything squared away.” The two walked off, and to Hanzo’s distant horror, Agent Tracer followed, almost bouncing along at their side--leaving him with Genji and the Omnic monk.

 

Silence crashed down like an ocean wave, smothering even the night noises of the wind and tree branches around them that Hanzo had paid no attention to until that moment.

 

The Omnic monk turned to him immediately and offered a bow of his head. He was standing on the ground with his tattered pants swishing at his feet and his metallic chest bare and his hands folded behind him. “Agent Shimada,” he greeted, his voice and tone as breathy and detached as ever. “I hope you are well?”

 

Hanzo swallowed and held a tight mental grip on his emotions as though he were about to take a flying leap. “Yes,” he said, and his pleasure was as distant yet as heartfelt as his horror when he managed a tolerable, neutral tone. “Agent McCree, Agent Mei, and Dr. Ziegler have all made sure of that.”

 

“Ah, excellent,” said the Omnic monk. “We were all concerned, but Athena assured us you had not gone far.”

 

“No,” said Hanzo, feeling a spike of embarrassment at the reminder that the AI had most likely watched every single step to the baijiu.

 

Silence reigned again after the one-word response, welling up among the trio with an almost viscous intensity.

 

“Agent Shimada?” The cowboy had come back, guiding his hovercycle alongside Agent Pharah and Agent Tracer. “We can show you where t’stow that.”

 

Hanzo nodded and followed the group--and if he heard a modulated puff of air, like a lungful had been released, he ignored it.

 

The cargo bay was indeed almost completely full--the elastic webbing and straps hanging off the walls were all stretched to their limits to contain all the crates and boxes. Hanzo felt a twinge of something proprietary to see it all in such an alien space and state, but it was nothing worth worrying over. He merely followed the cowboy’s directions and left the hovercycle in the little patch of floor available, butting up against the cowboy’s hovercycle. There would be room for Agent Pharah’s, but only just.

 

The cowboy made short work of strapping them in, producing what must be next to the last of the very last of the industrial-strength straps and bungees to keep them from shifting mid-flight. There would be barely be enough room for hers when it came time.

 

Then, both he and Hanzo slung their ammo onto their shoulders and they went back out and around to the hatch ramp with Agent Pharah, where the cowboy stopped and turned to her. “Alrighty, then,” he said casually with a calm smile. “We’ll bring y’all back something nice.”

 

“Bring me the head of an E54,” she said, equally casual. “It’s the last one I need for my collection.”

 

“Will do. See you soon.”

 

Then Agent Pharah turned to Hanzo and stuck out her hand. “Good luck on your first mission which is definitely your first and not your second.”

 

He pursed his lips slightly but managed not to shake his head. He returned the handshake, their grips firm, before she returned to her hovercycle, the empty trailer still attached, and started it up. She did not linger; she waved and revved the engine, sweeping a wide arc as she returned the way they came.

 

The cowboy, on the other hand, did linger. He returned her wave with a slight tip of his hat, and his fingers remained on the brim under she was out of sight. Then, without comment, he turned and led the way inside the Orca.

 

They found the MEKA kneeling once more by the shelving that usually held incidental luggage--apparently the hardlight restraints could be projected. They wrapped securely around the heavy vehicle, keeping it snug against the corner--and its color was revealed to be pink, bright pink. Hanzo almost wrinkled his nose at it--but what should he have expected from Agent D.Va?

 

Agent D.Va was already sitting in a jumpseat with her comm in hand, her fingers flying over its screen. She gave half a glance to the group and said, “You guys ready yet? Let’s get going.”

 

The cowboy took out his own comm and consulted it for a moment. “Winston’s given the go ahead as soon as Lena’s finished her preflight checks.”

 

As if on cue, Agent Tracer’s voice boomed over the PA: “Ladies and gentleman! Welcome back to Orca Airlines! We will be departing in exactly three minutes, two minutes fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven, so please make all your final preparations!”

 

The cowboy unhurriedly set his ammo bag on the ground and unzipped it. Hanzo, on the other hand, only had to undo the Velcro straps holding his arrows together and drop each bundle into his quiver until it was nearly stuffed full. He had three bundles left over, which he put in the shelves above the loveseat and next to the coffeemaker--they were already almost overflowing with boxes of what he guessed were more supplies for the upcoming battle.

 

“It is now thirty seconds before liftoff! Please make your way to a seat immediately! We hope you enjoy your flight, and thank you for choosing Orca Airlines! Twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty--”

 

Hanzo did not bother to look for or wonder about Genji and the Omnic monk. They were undoubtedly on the upper level or in the cockpit, as far from Hanzo as possible.

 

For which he was thankful.

 

He and the cowboy walked swiftly to the jumpseats across from Agent D.Va. The cowboy left a buffer seat between them as they lowered the restraints. Hanzo settled back with Storm Bow across his knees. They were across from the hatch, but there was little to see--it was barely 0430. The sun would not be making an appearance for a while longer, and the Orca would not be chasing it in any way. Agent Tracer would keep it low, threading among the volcanic peaks and mountain valleys that made up Ainu-Mosir’s interior to give the UN, the JSDF, or any other interested party as few opportunities as possible to breach the shielding and detect them. They would pass two checkpoints where Agent Tracer, Athena, and Winston would search for pursuit before continuing. Among other things, this meant the Orca would be twisting and turning far more than usual--and it was an immense relief, even in Hanzo’s battle fugue, that airsickness would not be among his foes today.

 

Agent Tracer began a ten-second countdown, which was unusual.

 

The cowboy’s head suddenly snapped towards him when she reached five.

 

“She’s in jet pilot mode,” he blurted, almost as one word. “Brace yourself!”

 

The warning was just in time--it was a good thing Hanzo tensed as soon as he registered the cowboy’s urgent tone. The Orca did not lift off so much as blast off like a rocket, leaping forward and up exactly as Hanzo imagined a fighter jet would. Far from being concerned of his own wellbeing, his eyes immediately shot to the MEKA, whose turrets were jiggling and joints were rattling far too much for comfort under the sudden heavy acceleration.

 

But Agent D.Va did not look concerned--she did not even look up from her comm, her fingers still moving over its surface as she clearly played some kind of game.

 

So he settled back and prepared to ride out the rest of the flight. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the cowboy looking at him. Glancing at him and his tightlipped, worried expression, Hanzo said quietly, “It is alright, Agent McCree.”

 

“No, it ain’,” said the cowboy reproachfully. “Slipped my mind that you weren’ in the Orca in Niigata. Stupid thing t’forget.”

 

“Perhaps,” allowed Hanzo, “but also an inconsequential thing.”

 

The cowboy grunted and said nothing more as the acceleration eased, only to be replaced by dipping and rising and tilting as Agent Tracer guided the Orca through the labyrinth that ultimately led to the Omnium.

 

The view out the hatch revealed almost nothing of their route beyond whipping past the occasional startlingly close snow-covered mountainside. Hanzo kept his eyes on it even as his attention turned inward, taking these last few minutes to focus on breathing exercises to shore up his battle readiness.

 

“Passing Checkpoint A,” intoned Agent Tracer over the PA. The Orca tipped to the left as it swung in a wide arc, but it seemed to Hanzo that they did not complete a single circuit before she announced, “No sign of detection. Proceeding to Checkpoint B.” The Orca dipped and turned and accelerated slightly.

 

Hanzo dug a chocolate bar and an energy bar out of a pack on his belt and quickly ate them in large bites. It was quite the feeling, eating while the seat and floor underneath him rocked to and fro with absolutely zero response from his stomach--it was far more preoccupied with the simmering, nervous feeling of adrenaline trying to break free of his calm, but it would not. He would not allow it.

 

“Passing Checkpoint B.”

 

The cowboy shifted in his seat. Out of the corner of his eye, Hanzo could see him lean forward and stare intently at the hatch, but there was still little to see.

 

“No sign of detection. We are go for insertion.”

 

“Confirmed,” announced Athena in Hanzo’s earpiece.

 

“Do it,” the cowboy ordered, and the Orca began to drop, its nose tilting downwards. “Alright, team--Genji, Zenyatta, and Tracer’ll stick to the right, Shimada, D.Va, and me to the left. Standard V-sweep advance. Genji, Shimada, the two of you get up on top as soon as y’all find a way up. Tracer and I take point, D.Va and Zenyatta will cover. Stick t’the plan and keep your eyes and comms open--Athena and Winston will be monitoring.”

 

A chorus of _rogers_ and _acknowledgeds_ rang back. Hanzo murmured his own as he ran his fingers up and down Storm Bow, checking for any last minute flaws or wear, but there were none.

 

“Approaching the insertion point. ETA: three minutes.”

 

The time ticked by in a stilted way, fast and slow at once. Hanzo’s eyes were glued on the hatch as he waited for any sign of their destination.

 

It appeared at last, dim and shadowy: the immense, spherical CPF, barely visible but distinct in the distance as the Orca swung around and descended.

 

Hanzo had seen many photographs and videos of it, of course, but this was the first time he had seen it in person. His gaze was dispassionate, but his stomach tightened as a familiar, generational fear took hold in the pit of his stomach.

 

The Hokkaido Omnium turned red when he was eight years old, and it was not long after when Hanzo was rarely out of reach of his mother and the elders. His mother had masterfully taken advantage of the chaos during the Omnic Crisis to expand the Shimada-gumi, but years after it ended she had confided in Hanzo that it always seemed like building a sandcastle as the tide was coming in--she had even vaguely imagined that she might have to step into a role left dormant since the end of World War II and personally lead the forces of the Shimada clan in some last, desperate, and ultimately futile battle.

 

Hanzo, however, had not been ignorant of his mother’s feelings during those dark days.  That--along with the loss of Hokkaido, the millions of refugees streaming south, the invasion of Honshu, the constant threat of attack, and the strain, the terrible strain of merely existing in wartime, even as isolated and protected as he was, as much as it was possible to be in those days--had left a mark.

 

Those had also been the days when the true division of treatment between the firstborn and secondborn sons became apparent. Hanzo was kept close to his mother, and thus his training as heir began in an impromptu and desperate atmosphere where his mother could die at any time--where any of them could die at any time--so Hanzo had been prepared accordingly, first as a figurehead, then more seriously as a leader as he grew older.

 

Genji, on the other hand, had been left mainly to their father, and the two of them together dealt with the realities of wartime by ignoring it as much as possible with the aid of frivolities that steadily grew ever more frivolous, even when the tide turned against the Omnics. By the time the Crisis ended when Hanzo was eighteen and Genji was fifteen, the mold was cast, and the result slowly set for another decade before--

 

Hanzo pursed his lips slightly as the CPF partially disappeared behind the dark walls of the remains of a production line wing as the Orca came in for a final landing.

 

It was the first time he had seen it in person, but it looked and felt familiar--he had spent a quarter of his life under the shadow of the Hokkaido Omnium.

 

The Orca shuddered as the antigrav pods came online and it came as close to a touchdown as they allowed.

 

“Commencing exterior scan,” announced Athena. “Standby.”

 

Agent D.Va, the cowboy, and Hanzo lifted the restraints and stood as one. Hanzo tested Storm Bow’s string and adjusted his quiver on his back, the magnetic bottom holding each shaft firmly in place. The cowboy whipped out his heavy revolver, popped the cylinder to one side and checked the ammunition. Satisfied, he spun it around twice and back into his holster.

 

“Alright, you guys ready to win?” Hanzo blinked in surprise at the sudden cheerful yet challenging question. Agent D.Va stood tall and proud as she snapped on an enormous pair of headphones before she struck a pose, arms crossed, hips cocked to one side. “Cuz you gotta let me know now if I have to carry this team.”

 

The cowboy snorted. “Game on, huh?”

 

“You know it!” she crowed with a smirk, uncrossing her arms to hold out a thumbs up. “Try to stay out of my way while we’re out there, old man.” Then she turned and strode confidently to the MEKA. Its hatch popped open, and she grabbed onto a swiveling handlebar that swung her inside in a single graceful motion. The MEKA immediately powered up and stood, turning to reveal Agent D.Va through the green-tinted windshield, a joystick in each hand and surrounded by a plethora of instrumentation and lights.

 

“Quick armwrestle before we get down to business?” she asked, jiggling one of the joysticks. The MEKA offered one of its turret arms.

 

“Maybe later. Don’ wanna embarrass you right before a mission,” the cowboy smoothly rebuffed.

 

Agent D.Va smiled, sharklike, but before she could reply, Winston’s deep voice came over the PA. “The exterior scan will be complete in sixty seconds. All agents report to your designated exits.”

 

Hanzo drew himself up and went through one last set of slow, careful breaths, letting all his cares and problems pass out and away.

 

With a burst of blue light, Agent Tracer was standing next to the MEKA. She had two white, black, and blue rapidfire pistols in her hands, pointed upwards and framing her own smiling face, her goggles tinting her expressive eyes a warm amber. “Cheers, loves!” she called out. “You ready for a good clean fight?”

 

“Good? Maybe. Clean? Not so much,” drawled the cowboy, patting his holster.

 

“Just make sure the ref doesn’t see,” replied Agent Tracer with a wink.

 

“Come now, McCree,” admonished Genji as he descended the stairs from the upper level, the Omnic monk walking at his side. “No need to play dirty--until Talon does. Then strike at them where they do not expect.”

 

“Eh,” said the cowboy, “I might just strike where they don’ expect first and get it over with.”

 

Hanzo nodded slightly to himself. He would do the same, given the chance.

 

“Alright, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” broke in Agent D.Va. The MEKA bounced up and down as she looked impatiently at the door. “Longest sixty seconds ever! Let’s get in the game!”

 

“This is valuable time, a chance to focus,” said the Omnic monk gently as he stopped at the MEKA’s side. “But perhaps you do not need any more time or focus.”

 

“Nope!” came the impertinent reply, followed by a groan when Athena announced, “Thirty seconds.”

 

The Omnic monk only hummed slightly in reply, the sound soft and rather out of place--but it appeared to have a purpose. His legs slowly left the ground and folded together, crosslegged in mid-air, and his hands came down to rest palm-up on his knees.  
  
Hanzo watched from the corner of his eye. He had read the Omnic monk’s personnel file during the typhoons, and there had been an addendum advising agents that this would happen in combat--the Omnic monk had apparently discovered that walking and running and balancing on two legs took up valuable computational resources that could be freed up for other uses in battle by using simple antigrav technology instead.

 

The image the Omnic monk projected, floating in mid-air with his hands folded upwards in mudra, was surely only a happy coincidence, Hanzo sardonically observed.

 

“Exterior scan complete in ten seconds. Ten, nine--”

 

Hanzo cast away that thought. He swiftly shrugged off the left sleeve of his _kyudo-gi,_ freeing his arm and tattoo. He tucked the loose sleeve into his _obi_ and tightened his grip on Storm Bow.

 

If they had been detected, this would be the perfect opportunity to eliminate them all.

 

“--two, one. Scan complete, no enemies detected. Mission commencing.”

 

“Good luck, agents,” murmured Winston, and the hatch hissed and opened.

 

Agent D.Va went first, the MEKA clunking noisily down the ramp as she scanned the immediate area, the turrets sweeping to and fro. The rest of Overwatch and Hanzo followed, Hanzo sticking close to the cowboy as he followed Agent D.Va. The group split at the foot of the ramp, following the cowboy’s directives as they spread out into the chaotic remains of the Omnium.

 

The Orca had landed at one end of a vast area that had once been one of the larger wings spreading out from the CPF--it had housed the array of fusion cores and geothermal plants that had powered the entire complex and had accordingly been the main target of the Overwatch and military forces that deactivated it, and it showed. The remains of battle lay everywhere in the guise of shattered concrete and twisted metal, the former walls and roofs and machinery blasted away from the foundations to end up piled in twin ridges that all wound inwards together among the more intact manufacturing lines towards the CPF.

 

The continued existence of the production line wings on either side was a testament to how furious the effort to destroy this wing must have been: the equipment inside had been destroyed post-Crisis, but the Omnium-produced reinforced concrete and steel had mostly contained the explosions. Only the windows had been blown out, leaving dark eyelike holes staring out of the empty shells on all sides. Any further damage was largely the work of the gradual grind of time and the occasional typhoon--even an Omnium was not wholly immune to greenery and erosion, though the effects were far more modest than a full twenty years of abandonment should have produced. The plantlife was limited mostly to where dust and soil had been deposited by the wind--otherwise it could find only the very occasional crack in the concrete. As a result, this wing and its plethora of nooks and crannies among the utterly pulverized remains boasted by far the most vines and shrubs seeking to conquer this strange territory--it looked almost like a urban linear park, a messy streak of organic life among the sterile concrete.

 

Hanzo kept pace with the cowboy and Agent D.Va as the trio coordinated their movements with Genji, the Omnic monk, and Agent Tracer. One group would scout about fifty meters before pausing to allow the other group to catch up and pass them. They advanced in this way until they reached a sharp turn to the left where the various wings of the Omnium began to crowd together in a tangle. When Hanzo’s group sidled up to the turn to investigate, they could see that the way was narrowing and almost immediately turned right again. The manufacturing lines on either side were beginning to tower above them, the empty sockets of the blownout windows staring down at them ominously.

 

“Alright, I think that’ll be close enough,” said the cowboy, both directly to Hanzo and over the commlink. “Shimada, Genji. Get up top and shadow us from the rooftops.”

 

“Acknowledged,” said Hanzo. Without waiting for Genji to speak, he turned and shot a look right, left, and above before he broke into a run, darting up and over the ridge of debris and straight at the dusty wall before him. He sprang up at the last moment, his crampons finding purchase on the rough surface easily as he scrambled up five, ten, fifteen, twenty meters before leaping lightly onto the edge of the roof. He scanned the scene before him for sentries and structural dangers but found only what he expected from the satellite photos: a flat catwalk covered in stainless steel grating running just below an orderly row of air intakes and exhaust stacks.

 

“I am in position--there is nothing to report,” he said calmly.

 

“Same here,” said Genji lightly, his voice low yet thunderous in Hanzo’s ear.

 

“That was actually pretty impressive,” Agent D.Va said lazily. “You guys looked like you practiced that.”

 

“Right?” burst Agent Tracer’s voice. “Just a turn, a run, and a leap, and they’re on the roof, no sweat, not even breathing hard. Synchronized ninjutsu.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips as he carefully made his way along the catwalk, wary of loose and noisy grating. He glanced across the way to see the speck of Genji mirroring him, appearing and disappearing among the catwalk’s other occupants: the rusted hulks and corpses of Omnic defenders.

 

Most of them had obviously come up here under their own power during the final battle, but every once in a while there was one that had been--tossed there from somewhere else. Most of those sat in the middle of spiderweb fractures if they landed on the reinforced walls. If they landed on the roof, however, they had a much higher chance of punching right through. There were several immense holes that made the five-centimeter-thick steel look like punctioned aluminium foil.

 

The hulks that remained scattered around on the roof and catwalk now served as convenient shelters and inconvenient hazards and hiding places, but that was precisely the kind of territory Hanzo had been trained since childhood to investigate and clear, so he moved ahead confidently and cautiously, paralleling the Overwatch agents below as they began to chat among themselves.

 

The apparently novel scene of Hanzo and Genji’s wallclimbing appeared to open the floodgates of conversation. As their path twisted right and left and Overwatch advanced, there were many quips about the state of the Omnium and wonderings about what the battle that deactivated it must have been like.

 

The cowboy and Agent Tracer were soon relaying stories they had heard about the frontline fighting--stories they had heard from Gabriel Reyes and John Morrison themselves.

 

“Gabe always said his favorite was Detroit,” the cowboy told everyone over the commlink with a small snort. “Everyone always wanted t’hear about Silicon Valley, but he thought Detroit made for a better story. He was sure that Silicon Valley was a fluke and Detroit would make sure it wouldn’ happen again--and it came close. Damn close. But they managed t’push through everything Detroit threw at ‘em. That’s when he knew they had a chance.”

 

“Commander Morrison liked--talking about Detroit more, too,” chimed in Agent Tracer, the sentence interrupted by a strange high-pitched zipping noise. “He never called it his ‘favourite’, though!”

 

The cowboy snorted. “Naw, he wouldn’.”

 

 _“My_ favorite story’s Reinhardt’s first mission with--Overwatch,” Agent Tracer continued brightly. This time Hanzo caught the brief blue flash from his vantage point an instant before the sound arrived on the comm. “He always gets so excited near the end when they’re about to cut the secondary power supply and seal off the CPF, it’s adorable.”

 

“It’s kinda amazing how adorable he gets,” agreed Agent D.Va as her MEKA plodded after the red figure of the cowboy. “He’s probably the most adorable man over 2.2 meters.”

 

“Ain’ that the truth.”

 

“Hey Genji!” sang out Agent Tracer, “I don’t think I ever heard what _your_ favorite story was back then!”

 

Hanzo felt his shoulders try to tense, but he rolled them loose before they had a chance.

 

“I--”

 

They tried to bunch up again at the sound of Genji’s reluctant tone.

 

“I never really paid attention back then,” said Genji with an air of admitting something shameful.

 

 _“What?!”_ exclaimed Agent Tracer, sounding offended. “The greatest conflict in living memory, battling for the very survival of the human race, and you didn’t listen to the people who were _there?!”_

 

“No,” replied Genji heavily. There was a short pause when a barely audible noise that may have been Agent Tracer being lost for words before he offered, “But I can tell you about when _this_ Omnium was shut down--I saw _that_ firsthand. Well,” he amended, “firsthand live on TV.”

 

Several snorts and laughs came over the comm. Hanzo rolled his eyes as he picked his way around a gaping hole where some unfortunate war machine had met its end. Within and far below he could see a few hints of the former production line, but nothing was recognizable from this height in the darkness.

 

“I was eleven,” Genji recounted. Hanzo pursed his lips--he had been _twelve_. There was a short pause, almost long enough to make Hanzo stop dead and crouch down in case Genji had spotted something, before his voice returned. “And all of Japan was glued to a holoscreen. We’d been following the fighting from the beginning, of course, and Overwatch had gotten pretty good at deactivating Omniums by then, but who knew what the Omnics might do? But I remember seeing that interview when Commander Liao said she wasn’t going to let anything stand between her and making landfall in Shanghai--and this Omnium was in her way. Badass.”

 

Hanzo listened to Genji’s modulated voice with only half an ear as he and Overwatch advanced. So far there was no sign whatsoever of any habitation or presence, human or Omnic, either above with Hanzo or below with Overwatch, but Hanzo could not shake a steadily rising apprehension--it was making him clutch tighter at Storm Bow and check his surroundings more and more often.

 

It could be nothing more than the simple passage of time--if an attack was going to happen, it was drawing closer all the time. Or it could be that they were drawing closer and closer to the CPF, the impregnable nerve center of the Omnium that had stood impervious to all attempts to dismantle it, the site where the miracle and nightmare of mass-produced AI had occurred. Everything else in the Omnium was advanced, but any other megacorporation could have produced the same given enough funds and time. The CPF, however, which now towered above them with its outline revealed by the barest hint of dawn, was where everything that made the Omnium just this side of impossible occurred.

 

“And then, when they cut the power and the lights flickered out? Everyone just started to _scream._ It didn’t sound like cheering to me, just _screaming,_ even though it wasn’t--I have spotted the enemy.”

 

They were coming up on another sharp turn, with Hanzo on the inner side and Genji on the outer, affording him a better view of what was coming. Hanzo immediately backed up a few paces and crouched as Genji went silent for a few moments. Then, “At least three sentries, two humans on either side, one Omnic in the middle, spread out at ground-level--nothing above that I can see. There’s some equipment behind them, but it’s mostly around the next corner. I can’t tell what it is.”

 

“If memory serves,” whispered the cowboy. “an electrical substation should be around that next corner. Might be where they set up camp. Shimada, take a look and see if you can confirm no sentries above ground level--use your sonic arrows at your discretion.”

 

“Acknowledged,” murmured Hanzo as he crept off the catwalk, making for the pointed crest of the roof rather than go around the corner.

 

The adrenaline was trying to kick in again something fierce, but he kept it at bay as he cautiously poked his head over the crest.

 

From this angle he could only see one of the sentries down on the ground. They were leaning casually against a wall with a weapon of some kind held loosely against their waist, not the least bit visibly alert. He could also see a little bit further past the next corner, and he immediately scowled.

 

“They possess a Vishkar teleporter approximately ten meters beyond the next turn,” he reported. “Set up under a canopy. I see no other guards at ground-level. Standby.” He drew two sonic arrows and aimed the first at a shadowy spot on the opposing roof where a sentry would have the best shot at him if they detected the arrow. He fired it with barely an instant’s hesitation, watching it sail in a high arc before it landed precisely in the center of the shadows. His retinal implants activated--and revealed nothing.

 

He fired the second arrow on to land in another spot on his side, but again, nothing.

 

“I have detected no sentries at roof level,” he said softly as he retreated back a little, just out of sight. “But that does not preclude others inside at lower levels.”

 

“We’ll smoke ‘em out if there are,” said the cowboy. “I’m comin’ up t’get a look. Stand--” The cowboy cut himself off with a sharp intake of breath.

 

“McCree?” asked Genji urgently.

 

“Talon.”

 

The cowboy’s voice was flat--but with a tight undercurrent of anger.

 

But when he spoke again, he was all business.

 

“Alright, Talon presence confirmed. Let’s move t’phase three. Tracer, Genji, Shimada, Zenyatta, what’re the odds of takin’ out those sentries without raisin’ hell?”

 

“Hanzo could do it,” said Genji immediately. “They’re not even moving. It’ll be child’s play.”

 

There was a moment of silence. “Shimada? You agree?”

 

Hanzo felt the tug of warring emotions at the recommendation, but he forced it down. “The third sentry will have four to five seconds to sound the alarm if they see the first fall,” he said. “It would be best if someone else took them, if they can do so quietly.”

 

“I can,” said the Omnic monk serenely, surprising Hanzo. “Give me a moment to move into position--I will take the one on the left and leave the center and right to Shimada.”

 

“Sounds good. Drop ‘em, then everyone move forward. First priority’s the teleporter for now--cut ‘em off from reinforcements and we’ll see how many are left over. Shimada, try t’get a look at how many exactly when you get the chance. Proceed.”

 

Hanzo nodded despite being so far removed from anyone who could see and moved along the roof to where he should be able to see his marks, but he waited to confirm it until the Omnic monk reported he was in position. Then he poked his head out again to see both targets right where they should be, the human leaning against the wall, and a standard-issue humanoid Omnic with three blue lights on its forehead standing tall precisely in the middle of the ruins. “Ready,” he said, arrow nocked and drawn.

 

“Take ‘em out.”

 

The target on the right was looking towards the center target, so they went down first--or they would have, had the arrow not pinned them to the wall by the throat. Hanzo did not pause to watch their hands instinctively fly up and struggle in vain to dislodge it, as they always did, he was already drawing and firing at the Omnic, who did not even have time to turn much before the arrow pierced their chassis and released a small shower of sparks from the main power conduit as they fell to the ground like a puppet with strings cut--a perfectly clean Omnic kill.

 

“Targets down,” he said, trying to keep the satisfaction out of his voice.

 

“Target down,” echoed the Omnic monk a beat behind.

 

“Move out,” commanded the cowboy immediately.

 

Hanzo wanted to be cautious in case someone was already searching for the snipers, but knowing that his vantage would shortly become invaluable, he sacrificed caution in favor of dashing in an unpredictable direction before scrambling over the crest of the roof, listening and watching intently for any sign of alarm--but for the moment there was none as he slid back down to the catwalk.

 

Before him he could see that the way opened up into an open space that was almost like a city plaza or square. The “plaza” then split in two, running in opposite directions like a highway T-junction. The ground was crisscrossed in what looked like thick webbing strung between broken masts and poles. The teleporter stood near the edge of the webbing, set up in the middle of a small circle that had been cleared of debris with an awning or canopy above it--one that was the same color as the debris all around.

 

The exact same color.

 

“They are using adaptive camouflage to conceal the teleporter,” he said, thinking of his own camouflage suit. “They may be hiding other equipment and enemies nearby in the same way.”

 

“Understood, Shimada,” replied the cowboy. “Keep a lookout for any movement.”

 

He had hardly completed the sentence when such movement became all too apparent.

 

Yells and shouts came from down below and about a dozen figures appeared seemingly out of nowhere, so many and so suddenly that Hanzo could not tell where they came from--and they moved quickly to protect the teleporter--opening fire as they came.

 

“Fire at will!” shouted the cowboy, the last word nearly drowned out by the report of his own revolver, but Hanzo was almost a full step ahead of him. A scatter arrow burst among a tight group of enemies, and four fell to the ground, two writhing, two motionless. Another enemy appeared out of nowhere and went to the aid of their still-moving comrades--and Hanzo was waiting for them, to see _where_ they appeared.

 

Another sonic arrow soared down and struck the ground, and red figures blossomed in Hanzo’s retinas.

 

“There are at least seven more enemies hiding under cover six or seven meters beyond the teleporter,” he said rapidly as he moved to a more favorable position. “They are preparing to fight.”

 

“D.Va! Concentrate on the teleporter! Cut off their reinforcements! Everyone else, clear her way!” said the cowboy urgently over the sound of the booms and cracks of his revolver. Agent D.Va immediately crowed and literally blasted off, her MEKA a streak of pink as it barrelled towards the teleporter and its defenders. A flash of blue off to the right revealed Agent Tracer moving to flank them, with the cowboy moving left to do the same. “Genji, see if you can get down behind ‘em and find their power source--get that camo switched off!”

 

“Understood,” said Genji, but under the word came the whistling noise of his shuriken. He was throwing them as he dashed in and out of sight on the roof. Hanzo grimaced--he was providing a means to trail his movements. Hopefully it was misdirection.

 

But Hanzo could not watch his brother for long.

 

“They have a shield generator!” exclaimed Agent D.Va. “No fair!”

 

Blue hardlight barriers had sprung out of nothing to protect the enemy--unidirectional barriers. They allowed the enemy’s own fire to pass through unhindered while her heavy fire and Overwatch’s attempts to cover her only speckled across their surfaces. That gave the defenders an advantage.

 

But it lasted only as long as Agent D.Va remained at a distance.

 

“Boosters engaged!”

 

And her MEKA literally smashed through, sending flashes of blue and white light splattering across the scene--along with some of the defenders. The rest immediately tried to fall back--but they fell instead to a single sweep of the MEKA’s turrets.

 

“Oh look, I found a teleporter,” Agent D.Va said casually as she swung the MEKA back around. “Lemme just take care of that real quick.”

 

But just as her turrets opened fire, two figures materialized out of the open wormhole. One did not even finish solidifying before a grappling line shot out and they were swinging away and upwards towards the roof opposite Hanzo.

 

The other waited long enough to resolve into a tall and wide figure dressed entirely in black with a cowl-like hood obscuring their features--before they leveled two enormous shotguns at Agent D.Va’s windshield.

 

“Dammit!” she growled, but she did not let even twin pointblank blasts deter or even stun her. She returned the favor, instead--ports popped open on the MEKA’s chassis and fired a barrage of rockets. The figure in black immediately fell back, a glimpse of bone-white flashing from under the hood--but they were not the target.

 

“Teleporter destroyed,” she said smugly when both the bright light and booming began to fade. “Lemme just--”

 

But the figure in black was evidently not pleased. He continued to fire, darting around the MEKA too quickly for her to catch him--and wherever he was aiming was finding a mark of some kind. Agent D.Va swore again and the MEKA scrambled backward. “I’m on defense,” she called over the comm. “I could use a hand!”

 

Both the cowboy and Agent Tracer responded, but Hanzo’s attention had been caught elsewhere.

 

“Sniper!”

 

He said the word as he released an arrow--but he was too late. A deep, echoing _crack_ echoed through the air, and his purple-and-black target stepped back into cover just before his arrow reached her.

 

He glanced down to see which of the figures below was sprawled across the ground.

 

But Agent D.Va yelled, _“Really?_ Out of everyone here, you go for the one person with a defense matrix?! Are you even trying?!”

 

“Zenyatta, get an orb on her,” ordered the cowboy as the figure in black continued to fire. Then, with deadly calm: “Shimada?”

 

“It is Widowmaker,” said Hanzo, confirming the unspoken question in the cowboy’s tone. “I am moving to engage.”

 

“You do that. You take care of her, we’ll take care of the Reaper. Watch your heads, everyone--no movin’ in straight lines ‘til Shimada’s got her.”

 

Hanzo allowed a cold calm to descend over himself as he faded back into cover behind an exhaust stack.

 

It had been a long time since he had engaged in a sniper duel.

 

He did not bother to waste a sonic arrow on where he had last seen her--she would not allow herself to be pinned down now that she was aware another sniper was here.

 

If this were a one-on-one battle, the two of them might spend hours waiting for the other to commit a final mistake as they cautiously moved from spot to spot--but both of them were working with a team.

 

And her team was larger than his team.

 

Thus, it was more likely that she would move to where she would have the best shot on the enemy below--if she found a good enough sheltered vantage point, then Hanzo would not be able to prevent her from picking off an Overwatch agent or two before she relocated. In the meantime, she would keep an eye out for Hanzo and take him out if he provided a convenient opportunity--but she would leave him to others undoubtedly working their way upwards to the roof to neutralize the enemy sniper. He would not be her first priority.

 

Unless he made himself her first priority.

 

He scanned the portion of the opposite roof that he could see from this angle. The orderly rows of exhaust stacks and intakes were obvious places to seek shelter, but they were all cubes and cuboids, and the right angles were not opportune. Hanzo could simply move right or left to check the shadows on either side, and if Widowmaker was hiding behind one, she would reveal herself the moment she did the same.

 

The ruined Omnic hulks scattered at random places and at random angles, however--

 

Hanzo threw himself to the ground and began to battlecrawl, moving with smooth practiced movements that were not the least bit jerky, abrupt, or eyecatching. He kept to the darkest of the shadows that were steadily strengthening as the sky continued to lighten with the oncoming dawn until he reached a point that was utterly open and unprotected--there he stopped.

 

Open and unprotected also meant unimpeded, and from here he could see the entire line of the opposing roof and everything on it. Across the gulf he could see at least a dozen Omnic corpses that could conceivably overlook the plaza-like space below--most of them were Bastion B-series walking turrets, and most of them were gathered close to the edge of the roof where they had no doubt intended to rain down death from above.

 

And Hanzo would have picked three of them to hide behind, based on their height and the angle their wrecks were oriented.

 

Having narrowed down the possible sites on the roof to three, he immediately crawled back into cover and arrived with skull intact. If his supposition was wrong and Widowmaker was keeping an eye out for him, it was likely she was not expecting an opponent with ninja training--but he could not depend on that. Talon had fought Overwatch and probably Blackwatch while Genji was in their service after all.

 

Two of the hulks were close enough together for a single sonic arrow--but they were both overshadowed by the third. Hanzo made his choice quickly and fired, aiming for the third one. He would not risk tipping off Widowmaker with a careless attempt at efficiency.

 

And there she was.

 

Even at this distance, Hanzo could tell she was taking aim at someone on the field below.

 

He could try to distract her with a scatter arrow, but it would be impossible to hit her, and she may ignore it completely as she took the shot.

 

Well.

 

This was not the first time he had honored a single assassin with a death borne by dragons--and she probably merited it if her reputation was any indication.

 

Time slowed as Hanzo’s will reached into the space between his skin and his tattoo where the dragons dwelled. They shifted and began to writhe when they heard his call, surging as one up and outwards to seek the one they must destroy, enveloping his arm and his arrow in their coils as they waited to be unleashed on the physical world once more.

 

“ _Ryū ga--”_

 

 _“McCree!_ Have everyone converge on my signal! _Now!”_

 

The dragons and Hanzo’s concentration shattered at the sound of near-panic in Genji’s voice--it was being tightly controlled, but only just.

 

“Everyone on the ground, get to Genji,” said the cowboy, still calm.

 

 _“Everyone,_ including Hanzo! They’re about to reactivate the Omnium!”

 

Everything seemed to go silent for a tense, endless moment--silent, but not motionless. Hanzo had time to watch Widowmaker sudden jerk upright before she shot a grappling hook and her red figure was tore to the left--towards the far side of the plaza.

 

Even given the grave pronouncement and its horrific implications, he did not forget himself: he dashed out of cover and let the arrow fly in an attempt to finish her while she was distracted--but it was too late. She was out of range.

 

Behind him, three enemies suddenly burst out of a trapdoor set into the catwalk.

 

“There he--” one started to yell, but Hanzo could waste no more time. An arrow pierced his skull before a scatter arrow’s fragments sliced into the other two. One more went down, but the last managed to let out a strangled roar and barrel towards Hanzo--but it was a simple matter of stepping aside at the last moment, and using their momentum to trip them up and direct them over the roof’s edge. Hanzo was already five meters further along the roof when their distant scream cut off, running as silently as he could as he weaved in and out of shelter.

 

There had been a short babble of voices over the comm while he took care of those three Talon agents, but by the time he started paying attention again, the cowboy had already cut through it. “D.Va, do what you gotta do to clear us a path! Tracer, you and I’ll cover her flanks! Zenyatta, watch our backs, this’s gonna get real bloody. Shimada! Where’s Widowmaker?”

 

“She’s disengaged and retreated--I believe she’s gone to reinforce their defenses,” he reported, forcing his words to be even around his heavy breathing. “They must know Genji‘s discovered them.”

 

“Oh, yeah, they know I’m here,” confirmed Genji, his voice strained. “They’re massing their grunts around the generator and sending teams to smoke me out--they’ve got some whitecoats here, they’re trying to fix up something that looks like a backup generator stitched up with hardlight. I got close enough to hear them say they’re using it to jumpstart the CPF!”

 

The cowboy swore before he said, “Commander! You hearing this?”

 

“Destroy that generator,” replied Winston instantly, voice grave. “How close are they to activating it, Genji?”

 

“It’s already activated,” he said grimly. “They’re building a charge to restart the core.”

 

Hanzo reached a point where he could see directly across the plaza-like space. The webbing was revealed to be electric cables strung between the remains of power pylons. On the far side, the enemy was scrambling like a disturbed anthill--though their numbers were nowhere near so great, once he took a hand of his adrenaline and fear and jerked them back like unruly beasts.

 

Two dozen at most were visible outside. Overwatch was outnumbered, but there was as yet no sign of heavier equipment that might rival the MEKA. There might be a chance.

 

Hanzo’s more rational side also chose that moment to catch up.

 

How much of a chance? And if they failed, what chance was there of fighting their way out of a reactivated Omnium?

 

The destruction around them all was an attempt to deny as many resources and recourses to the Omnium as possible, were it to suddenly spring back to life. The reason for this was simple: when an Omnium was cut off from its power source, the battle was not over--it usually took another two days of intense fighting to keep the last of the Omnic defenders cooped up within the CPF itself until their fuel reserves dried up. Unable to synthesize any more, the CPF had no option but to seal itself off with the defenders inside and hope that the other Omniums would eventually send aid--but they never did.

 

There were potentially hundreds of Omnic war machines waiting inside the CPF for a jumpstart.

 

If that were the case, and Overwatch did not stop Talon in time--it would be best to--

 

“I’ve informed the UN and JSDF of the situation,” boomed Winston over the comm, “but by the time they’ve confirmed what’s happening and send help, it’ll be too late. D.Va, can you get through?”

 

“Yeah, I’ll get through,” she said, all hint of levity gone. “But if they’re using hardlight, I dunno if cannons and missiles will be enough. That leaves the self-destruct.”

 

“No!” cut in Agent Tracer immediately. Hanzo could see her flat-out running between flashes of blue light as she tried to catch up with the MEKA barreling towards Talon’s position. “It’s too risky!”

 

“It is,” Agent D.Va agreed, rather unexpectedly. “If I don’t know ahead of time where I’m going. Genji?”

 

“I no longer have a visual,” said Genji regretfully, “But the entrance opens directly into the generator room--it’s at least fifty by ninety meters. There’s two or three wrecked generators between it and the active one.”

 

“Two or three?” snapped Agent D.Va. “This has to be a precision hit!”

 

“I don’t know!” Genji snapped back. “I’ll try to get back and--”

 

“Nope! Nope, no time to wait, just get under cover. Hey, archer!” The MEKA dug in its heels and came to a sudden dead stop--before it blasted off from the ground _backwards._ It spun in midair to turn around and right itself as it flew low over the ground. “Where are you?” she demanded. “I’m gonna need one of those sonic doohickies to tell me where to go.”

 

“Agent D.Va--” started Winston.

 

“Hana!” yelled Agent Tracer.

 

“Here!” said Hanzo, standing tall and straight and waving Storm Bow to catch her attention. She corrected her flight path to make for him, but the MEKA suddenly dropped back to the ground. Agent D.Va did not lose a beat--the MEKA continued to run full-tilt over the ground for a few moments before it blasted off again.

 

“Looks like this’ll take four bunny hops for the fuel synthesizers.” she said, sounding annoyed as she dropped back to the ground after two or three seconds. “Hope we got enough--hey!”

 

Instead of wasting time and fuel on the fourth blastoff to get up to him, Hanzo stepped off the roof to meet her instead. The twenty-meter fall rattled his bones, but it was nothing his prosthetics could not endure as he rolled forward to kill his momentum and sprang back up and was off like a shot. “Where?” he asked shortly as he sprinted.

 

“There’s a hand bar on the hatch. Keep your head down so you don’t get roasted by the jets,” she instructed as she landed with an intense crack of gravel and spun the MEKA around once more.

 

Hanzo threw himself forward and took hold of the rubber grips on the proffered hand bar. “Go!” he commanded as he swung his legs to dig his crampons into its metal carapace to see if they would find purchase--and they did.

 

It was fortunate they did.

 

“Hang on, old man!”

 

It was like being back in the Orca in terms of acceleration, the only difference being brief, intense blast of heat from the jets. It was quickly swept away in the airstream as the MEKA leapt forward. They cut off with an audible click of injector ports, and while the MEKA was falling he cushioned his head against his arms for the landing--but it jolted far less than he expected, the mechanical legs of the MEKA taking virtually all of the fall with only a little transferred into the pilot pod--and even less of its running steps could be felt even as he hung off its back like a roughhousing toddler.

 

Since time was of the essence and the ride was much smoother than he anticipated, he lifted his head and studied the layout above him. Yes--yes, he concluded before Agent D.Va yelled a warning and he tucked his head back between his arms, just in case, as the MEKA took off again. He could easily climb into a better position when it was not in powered flight.

 

A few bullets began to glance off the MEKA as it landed from its second jump, startlingly loud against its thick armor. It was like being surrounded by a dozen unbalanced washing machines--Agent D.Va’s headphones suddenly made a great deal of sense.

 

But if Talon was shooting, then Hanzo’s intentions might be--

 

“Keep goin’--we’re clearin’ the way,” panted the cowboy over the comm. “No sign of Widowmaker or the Reaper, so it shouldn’ be too hard--or will it, Tracer?”

 

“It’s _never_ hard!” she declared over a burst of pulse pistol fire and a loud scream. “It’s either easy or impossible!”

 

And the bullets stopped.

 

“Alright, archer, this last jump will put us about fifteen meters from the entrance they’re defending,” said Agent D.Va. “At top speed it’ll take three seconds to reach the entrance. I gotta know where to aim this thing ASAP. Once I start the self-destruct, you got three seconds to find cover, or they’ll have a good chance of hitting the engine before it can do anything! _”_

 

“Understood,” said Hanzo, and he barely said the word before the MEKA was off the ground again--and as soon as the jets cut off, Hanzo sprang into motion.

 

“Hey!” shouted Agent D.Va as he scrambled upwards--she must have felt the shifting mass.

 

“I am secure,” he ground out as he crested the MEKA and swept Storm Bow off his shoulder, holding it to the MEKA with one hand while he dug in with his other three limbs. It was very nearly not true--the hand- and footholds were much more nonexistent up here, and there was some--residue--from Agent D.Va’s earlier kills, and despite the shock absorption Hanzo was almost thrown off during the landing, but he held firm.

 

Before them was the grey wall with the entrance Genji had spoken of, a wide service entrance large enough for a heavy vehicle to pass through. The doors lay swung open on either side--several bodies of their foes lay scattered around them, obviously struck down while trying to shut them, and the smell of their deaths hung in the air. Inside, the interior was nearly pitchblack--with flickering stars of gun muzzle flashes. A bullet whipped past Hanzo’s ear, but it was clear they were aiming elsewhere--perhaps Genji was offering himself as a diversion.

 

There was no time to think about that, or the sudden drop in his stomach, or the fear, or Talon or Omnics or the CPF.

 

As soon as the MEKA was stable enough, he rose to his knees, nocked a scatter arrow and fired it at the threshold of the entrance to help clear the way of any enemies lying in the wait--a scream immediately justified the decision.

 

Now it was time for the sonic arrow. Hanzo nocked it and drew the string back. Fifty by ninety meters. Genji had not said how the room was oriented--but he _had_ said they were massing their defenders around the generator.

 

He aimed for the gun muzzle flashes and let the arrow fly a second before the MEKA entered the building.

 

His retinal implants activated just as the _crack_ of a sniper rifle reached him.

 

“Defense! Matrix!” shouted Agent D.Va defiantly. “And my APM is legendary, you hack!”

 

“The generator is fifty-five meters directly ahead,” said Hanzo calmly, estimating the distance to the mass of red splotches easily from a lifetime of archery.

 

“Easy mode! Activating self-destruct sequence! _Run!”_

 

Hanzo turned and leapt lightly off as the MEKA began to shake violently as an electric hum filled the air. He caught a glimpse of the hatch bursting open below him, and the jets fired in the same moment, propelling the MEKA up and away with a blast of scalding hot air across his back.

 

He and Agent D.Va hit the ground at nearly the same time, though she stumbled a bit on landing, but she was running almost before he was. “Go go go!”

 

They dashed towards the entrance side-by-side and threw themselves in opposite directions as soon as the predawn sky opened up above them.

 

Hanzo barely cleared the heavy door before it was torn off its hinges.

 

The sound of the explosion was so loud and so low-pitched that it was almost inaudible even as it rumbled in his lungs and bones and skull. The ground trembled beneath his prone frame--when had he sprawled across the ground? Had it been by choice?--and the screams of the furious and the terrified and the dying soon emerged from underneath the explosion.

 

“Hanzo?! _Hanzo?!_ Did you make it out?!” Genji was almost screaming into the comm, that much was clear from his tone, but it was quiet next to the ringing in his ears. “D.Va! Where are you?!”

 

“We’re fine, he’s fine, he’s moving,” she answered, sounding a bit groggy. “The building’s weaker than I thought, it blasted straight through the wall. I shoulda given us more time to get clear.”

 

Hanzo raised his head and looked around. Where the rectangular entrance to the generators had been was now a gaping jagged hole with bits of concrete still breaking free from its edges and falling to the ground. As the ringing in his ears and the stunning effect from the blast began to fade, he began to pick himself up, rising to his hands and knees. “I am here,” he said--groaned really. His ribs felt abused. “I am here. I am fine.”

 

There was a long sigh, but it was drowned out by footsteps crunching close to him, thunderously loud even compared to the explosion. Storm Bow was still in his hands--he whipped it up with arrow nocked before he could blink.

 

The cowboy raised his hands immediately, his revolver pointed at the sky. “Whoa there, it’s me, it’s me!” he exclaimed. “It’s just me.”

 

“Ah,” said Hanzo, blinking and lowering Storm Bow slightly. Then, looking past the cowboy at the enlarged opening, he asked urgently, “Were we successful?”

 

“Ayup,” said the cowboy with a wide grin. “Couldnta done better if you dropped it straight down from above. Took out thirty or so Talon with it, too.”

 

Hanzo tried not to look too closely at anything on the ground--with so many enemies caught, some of their body parts would certainly have been thrown this far.

 

“C’mon, we’re still in battlemode,” said the cowboy, his grin fading into a tired, cautious smile. “We don’ know where Widowmaker or the Reaper got to. We gotta move out before they come lookin’ for us and before the UN or the JSDF come. C’mon, get on up.”

 

Spurred on by the thought of Widowmaker more than anything else, Hanzo nearly jumped to his feet before the cowboy could even touch him. “I will go search and clear the rooftops,” he said, and nearly started running towards the nearest wall before the cowboy held out an arm to stop him.

 

“No go, we’ve already spotted drones,” he said firmly. “We’re grounded. Winston tipped off the UN that something was goin’ on, but he can’ tell ‘em specifics. If they see you, they’ll try t’take you. We gotta stay hidden as long as possible--we’re gonna go back through one of the manufacturing wings.”

 

“Very well,” said Hanzo shortly. He looked around and spotted Agent D.Va about fifteen meters away, on the other side of the former entrance. The Omnic monk and Agent Tracer were with her, and she seemed to be in worse shape than Hanzo--she was sitting on the ground while the others stood above her, visibly wobbling even from this distance. One of the Omnic monk’s orbs was floating above her shoulder, with a thin golden filament of biotic energy shimmering between it and her neck.

 

“Problems, problems,” she muttered, audible over the comm. “We got problems.”

 

“Take it easy, Hana,” said Agent Tracer, bending down and placing a hand on her back. “We got you.”

 

“No--we got problems. My MEKA--”

 

“It’s alright, Hana. You blew it up--remember?” said Agent Tracer, glancing worriedly up at the Omnic monk floating on Agent D.Va’s other side.

 

“No!” Agent D.Va was suddenly angry and she twisted away from the hand on her back. “No, we got problems! They should’ve sent a new MEKA by now!”

 

“What?” said Hanzo flatly, tensing and looking at the cowboy.

 

The cowboy was biting his lip and looking up, scanning the sky. “Part of the classified military tech she’s gotta protect,” he explained distractedly. “If a MEKA’s destroyed but the pilot survives, they can teleport a new one from MEKA’s central hanger to their location. ‘Parently takes a fair bit of energy, though, so it ain’ instantaneous, but it don’ take _too_ long neither. D.Va?” he asked, beginning to take long strides towards the increasingly agitated agent. “Could the UN be running interference?”

 

“They _can’t_ run interference!” she retorted as she tried to struggle to her feet. “But you know who _can?!”_

 

_“Above you!”_

 

The Omnic landed an instant after Genji’s shouted warning, a scant meter or two in front of the cowboy, sending a spray of pulverized concrete dust and gravel scattering around its feet. It was a Bastion, a B73, and it immediately switched into turret mode, apparently intent on mowing down everyone present with its gatling gun.

 

But that was a mistake.

 

Hanzo had never seen a non-automatic pistol fire so fast.

 

The B73 immediately crumpled, its gatling gun thunking dully into the ground as it nearly tore itself free from the dead Omnic in midswing.

 

“Aw, _hell,”_ growled the cowboy, popping open his revolver’s cylinder and stuffing more bullets into his revolver without missing a beat. _“Genji?!”_

“More are coming!” came the reply from above, before Genji landed silently on the ground nearby. “There’s a few advance units, but there’s more coming behind them--it looks like a full battalion!”

 

“Change of plan,” barked the cowboy, “forget stayin’ hidden and run like hell! Retreat back t’the Orca before we get overrun!”

 

“D.Va will require assistance,” interjected the Omnic monk. He was standing on the ground and had pulled her into a standing position--but she was very obviously unwell, her movements jerky and swaying as she tried to pull away from him. The orb above her shoulder was bobbing up and down almost fretfully. “She likely has a head injury.”

 

“Then we gotta form a--” started the cowboy, speaking rapidly--

 

\--and more advance units arrived.

 

Like the first, they appeared over the rooftop, five of them. Three of them immediately dropped to ground level, but the other two switched to turret mode, intent on providing cover.

 

“Tracer, Genji, take the ground units with me!” shouted the cowboy. “Shimada, the rooftop! Get D.Va outta here, Zen!”

 

Hanzo was already backing up to get a better angle, and his first arrow struck true on the nearest Bastion unit’s main sensory diode, effectively blinding it. It immediately began to swivel back and forth in confusion, leaving Hanzo free to take on the other. Unfortunately, it saw what had happened to its comrade and immediately switched back into recon mode to back away from the edge--but not before Hanzo managed a hasty hit on one of its hip joints. It teetered and tottered and lurched from side to side before it disappeared from sight--not out of the fight, perhaps, but seriously impaired.

 

Hanzo returned his attention to ground level--and saw his death laid out before him.

 

He had let himself get too distracted--and the cowboy had had to come to his aid. He was finishing off a Bastion unit that was sprawled out flat on the ground, turret arm reaching out towards Hanzo.

 

He did not wish to think how close it might have come.

 

He found the cowboy’s eyes as he looked up and gave a short, curt nod of thanks--before he stiffened and his lips curled in a snarl in the split-second before he raised Storm Bow.

 

The cowboy flinched as his arrow whistled past his shoulder--and into the sensory diode of another Bastion unit coming up behind him. Agent Tracer had been blinking and flashing around it as it swung wildly around and around trying to pin her down amid the flashes of blue afterimages--but then it had abruptly tired of the blinding and confusing assault and turned towards the cowboy as a slower, more visible target.

 

Now, with an arrow sticking out of its eye, it fired wildly, forcing both Hanzo and the cowboy to roll to the side and out of the random swathe of gunfire--

 

\--and again, the cowboy’s speed surprised Hanzo. He was up and firing his revolver before Hanzo had finished rolling.

 

And, like Hanzo, the cowboy’s shots were unerring. The Bastion unit shuddered as the bullets pierced its chassis and it collapsed with a shower of sparks.

 

The cowboy turned back to Hanzo, frowning.

 

“You--you alright, Shimada?” he asked slowly, carefully and slowly putting his revolver in its holster.

 

Hanzo could not suppress a look of utter nonplussed confusion--the cowboy was suddenly acting as though he expected Hanzo to be--disturbed? On edge? Or even deranged, judging by how carefully he was moving, as though afraid that Hanzo would strike out at any moment. Had the cowboy been so disturbed by Hanzo’s shot?

 

There was no time for whatever foolishness this was. “I’m _fine,_ Agent McCree,” he replied sharply with a scowl and a raised eyebrow--and his scowl turned inwards at his own tone, and he reined himself in. “I apologize if my shot startled you, but I had to act quickly.”

 

The cowboy did not look altogether convinced, narrowing his eyes as though scrutinizing Hanzo. He did not like it one bit, so he cast about for something--anything--to say, and his eyes settled on the first Bastion that had tried to take advantage of his distraction. “Thank you,” he blurted, gesturing with Storm Bow at its corpse.

 

The cowboy looked completely caught off-guard, his face going slack with surprise.

 

Then--a grin slowly grew--and he _winked._

 

“This life’s never uneventful, right, Shimada?” he asked, placing a hand on his holstered revolver and waggling his eyebrows a bit.

 

Hanzo was spared answering both the gestures and the comment--because all hell broke loose.

 

The main body of the battalion had arrived.

 

A line of of about a dozen Bastion units appeared from around a corner of the left junction.

 

Hanzo could not see exactly how many because they were already in tank mode--and they opened fire instantly.

 

“Fall back! _Fall back!”_ yelled the cowboy, and both he and Hanzo tried to run for the entrance to the plaza--the Omnic monk and Agent D.Va were already nearly there--but the ground before their feet exploded up and outwards, throwing them back. Hanzo twisted around in midair and managed to land on his feet--roughly, but adequately.

 

The cowboy sprawled and rolled almost head over heels--but it was apparently deliberate, because after a grunt and a groan he was up again, his cape flipped up over his shoulders and his hat hanging off his hair, but otherwise nonetheworse for wear.

 

“C’mon!” he shouted, reaching out for Hanzo and gesturing behind them. “That way!”

 

Behind them was the right junction, which still looked clear. Hanzo obeyed without question--there was no other option when the Bastion units were laying down artillery fire. There was no way they could get through.

 

“Hanzo! McCree!” called Genji--and Hanzo spotted the absolute _fool_ trying to _join_ them, dodging the explosions as best he could, leaving behind green streaks as he moved and with the bright white flames glinting off his silver armor.

 

The absolute _fool!_

 

“Genji, you _idiot!”_ the cowboy howled. “You _idiot!_ You and Tracer cover Zen and Song! Get to the Orca--we’ll get there another way!”

 

“No--!”

 

“Genji, they’ve spotted them! Help me before you get cut off!” shouted Agent Tracer. She looked tiny before the onslaught as a dozen war machines bore down on her, but she merely spun her pistols and fired, blasting apart the nearest Bastion unit even as it tried to swing its cannon to fire at pointblank range. One of its fellow units moved to avenge it, but it fired on empty air--and she was suddenly behind it and sending its mangled remains scattering as well.

 

But there were far too many for her to handle alone.

 

Genji moaned.

 

“Go on and _git!”_ ordered the cowboy.

 

And Genji turned back.

 

And even in the middle of a desperate battle, even while he ran for his life, even as he dared not look back to see their pursuers gaining and even as he waited to hear the sounds of Genji or Agent Tracer or Agent D.Va or the Omnic monk or the cowboy gasp or scream as they were hit and lay dying--if they had time to gasp or scream or lay dying--

 

\--even through all that, a burst of bitter anger and jealousy managed to surge up into Hanzo’s chest.

 

Years of explanations and conjoling and bribes and threats and even outright begging--and Genji had never obeyed _him,_ even when his life depended on it.

 

Shame, shame, shame, hot and black, coursed through him, and he threw himself forward, letting the pain of it spur him on. What a thing to think of, and at such a time, he thought, startlingly clear through the noise and the fear and the wildly surging adrenaline.

 

“To the right!” shouted the cowboy at his side, moving to shove him in that direction. “Inside! We can’t stay out in the open!”

 

Hanzo changed direction on autopilot--the cowboy was guiding them towards the blown out windows of a manufacturing wing. They dove inside side-by-side--and were immediately knocked off their feet by the impact and explosion of more rounds of artillery on the walls on either side.

 

But their forward momentum carried them clear--and the wall collapsed behind them with billowing clouds of dust.

 

Hanzo picked himself off the ground immediately--or what seemed to be immediately. Blood was dripping down his face so he could not be certain.

 

But his mind felt crystal clear--it was almost like the hit had knocked his own foolishness out of him.

 

“Cowboy?” he asked, searching around through the grey-black dust.

 

A hand grabbed his arm. “C-c’mon,” the cowboy coughed. “Let’s try t’get topside! Me and you will do better shooting from above!”

 

They pushed their way through the dust, stumbling on any number of pieces of debris as they searched for the walls or anything at all to guide them in what was clearly a cavernous interior, the explosions outside echoing in a vast space. Much of the debris was splintered metal, so Hanzo pushed his way ahead to keep the cowboy from lacerating himself.

 

He immediately caught on. “I got my chaps,” he panted, though he did not try to pull Hanzo back by the arm.

 

“I have metal legs,” replied Hanzo, deadpan.

 

The cowboy chuckled, despite everything.

 

Finally they came to a wall, and it quickly guided them towards light. Hanzo paused at first, not sure if they should head outside so soon, but the explosions outside were becoming fainter, and no more had thundered against this building since they dived in--perhaps the Bastion units had assumed they had died.

 

Or they simply decided to go after the larger group of intruders.

 

The thought of Genji fleeing for his life and pursued by a battalion of Omnic war machines made it imperative to go outside.

 

He lurched forward, but the cowboy caught him. “Winston?” he said softly. “Winston, you read me?”

 

“McCree!” The gorilla’s voice was booming and thick with relief. “You’re alive! Is Shimada with you?!”

 

“Yeah, he’s here with me--we’re both walking.” The cowboy pushed Hanzo forward a little, and together they approached more ground level windows that had blown out two decades prior. The dust cloud was pouring out of them and being whipped away by a breeze, but it was the only thing they could see moving--more booms and explosions could be heard, but they had dropped noticeably in frequency. “We don’ see no bogies where we are.” The cowboy paused and drew in a breath. “The others?”

 

“They’re being pursued, but the Orca’s gone to meet them,” said Winston hurriedly. “They only need to get to where it opens up and they can evacuate. You two need to go roofside ASAP--the Orca can come around and pick you up!”

 

“Roger,” said the cowboy, bucking up a little--he had slouched in painfully visible relief at the news the others were still alive. Hanzo had fisted his hands at the news--pursuit meant they could still die at any time.

 

“But you gotta be quick,” Winston warned. “The JSDF and UN have closed the airspace over all of Hokkaido--that can only mean an airstrike! We can’t let you get caught in the crossfire!”

 

The cowboy groaned as Hanzo pursed his lips. An airstrike would do no good on an reactivated Omnium--but it would take care of any nearby humans. “We hear ya,” said the cowboy, voice grave. “We’ll get upstairs soon as possible.”

 

“Stay sharp! One reason the others are alive is because they’re only being pursued by half the battalion--the other half is heading in another direction. We think they must have detected more Talon there, but we can’t be sure. Just concentrate on getting out of there--we can leave the cleanup to the UN.”

 

“Cleanup?” the cowboy perked up even more. “You mean--the Omnium’s not reactivated?”

 

“That’s a negative,” said Winston, and even given the serious situation, a pleased note crept into his voice. “Talon built up enough charge to start up its defenders, but _not_ the CPF. We think they came out thinking reinforcements were on the way and found all of you instead. But whatever else happens, agents, you stopped the Omnium from being reactivated. Now just focus on getting yourselves out of there!”

 

“Roger that,” said the cowboy, and the ghost of a smile had returned to his face. “We’ll give you a call when we’re topside. McCree out.”

 

There was silence for a moment, before the cowboy drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

 

“Well,” he said with a low chuckle. “Good t’know the world ain’ ending yet.”

 

Hanzo clenched his jaw. They were still in mortal danger--it would not do to celebrate a victory prematurely. He moved forward, urging the cowboy to move with him, and he followed easily as they stepped carefully out into the strengthening light of dawn and began searching for a way up--a way up for the cowboy, at least.

 

But even so--Hanzo was not completely immune to the good news that the worst had not occurred. They could be forgiven for jumping to conclusions when a battalion--half a battalion--of Bastion units had rounded the corner, but there had not been time to really consider the consequences of such a spectacular failure on their part.

 

Hanzo thought distantly of Asai--of all the Ainu settlements on Ainu-Mosir’s eastern coast--and even of little Umeko and her father, somewhere in one of those settlements.

 

They were safe. They were all safe--nearly sixty thousand people. Most may have been able to evacuate, but many of them would have refused--Asai would have refused, he was certain. But now she would not have to stand between her little general store in Hirō and a wave of Omnic soldiers. None of them would have to live through another Crisis--another Siberian Omnium.

 

And that--that was good.

 

“I don’ suppose you got any spidercord on you?” asked the cowboy, breaking the silence as they looked up and down at the surrounding buildings. “I dunno if we’re gonna find a usable stairwell anywhere around here.”

 

Hanzo stopped and craned his neck up. “I do,” he said slowly. “But I doubt-- _sniper!”_

 

He threw himself at the cowboy and knocked him to the ground--and a puff of dust and soil sprang up behind them. He was back on his feet instantly, Storm Bow at the ready.

 

Widowmaker had been aiming for him.

 

He fired a sonic arrow without delay, hoping to catch even a fleeting glimpse of where she had gone--but he need not have bothered. She stepped out of cover, rifle raised to her shoulder, and leisurely took aim.

 

His lips curled at the sight--he knew an insult when he saw one.

 

So he sidestepped her next shot rather than run for cover--the bullet whistled past his ear--and answered in the meantime with a shot that forced her to step aside, too.

 

There was flash of white in the shadow of her face--she was smiling, or--or _laughing._

 

There was no time for this foolishness. His next shot was a scatter arrow.

 

She had to move then, dashing to one side to avoid the fragments, and she shot out a grappling hook that allowed her to jump the crevice between buildings to the other side. Hanzo followed her with another drawn arrow--

 

\--but before he could let it fly, the cowboy was at his side again. “Listen!” he whispered.

 

Hanzo had become distracted again, and foolishly so.

 

More explosions--more explosions approaching.

 

“This way!” the cowboy ordered, running to take cover in the ground floor of the same building Widowmaker had gone to. Hanzo kept his eyes and arrow trained above until they took refuge.

 

The entrance the cowboy led him to did not lead into another cavernous space of a demolished manufacturing line--instead, there was a long but low room that was surprisingly human-proportioned, with several doors leading out of it and with the wiry metal remains of what might have been couches and chairs once upon a time pressed up against the walls.

 

“Way station for human employees,” muttered the cowboy, pressing his back to the wall next to the entrance and peeking outside. “We passed a bunch on the way in, don’ know if you saw.”

 

“Does it have roof access?” asked Hanzo shortly, looking from one door to another with a mixture of immense distrust and hope.

 

“Don’ know--don’ think so,” said the cowboy with a small huff. “Just offices and maybe a repair station is all I know is here. But right now we gotta lay low and hope--aw, _hell.”_

 

Human yelling and shouting could be heard among the explosions now--and it was all getting louder and closer.

 

“God _dammit,”_ muttered the cowboy. “We ain' catchin’ no breaks today.”

 

“If we stay quiet and unseen, we may not be caught up in their fight,” said Hanzo grimly flattening himself on the other side of the door from the cowboy. “But we must be prepared.”

 

“I hear ya,” murmured the cowboy. “And keep an eye out for Widowmaker--she may try t’throw us t’the dogs.”

 

Hanzo nodded. The thought had occurred to him, but it was too late to relocate now.

 

Much too late. The cowboy stiffened and held his revolver at the ready. “I got a visual,” he whispered.

 

The next few minutes stretched on for breathless eons. The Talon agents outside sounded somewhat organized, judging by the way they shouted updates and warnings to each other as they slowly backed away from the advancing Bastions.

 

And the Reaper announced his presence with short, rapid shotgun blasts.

 

But they were taking heavy casualties, if the brief screams were anything to judge by. By the time Hanzo caught sight of them from his unfavorable angle, they had been reduced to a small tightly knit band crowding behind a single hardlight barrier being propped up by three burly agents and an Omnic.

 

But cracks were appearing in the barrier--it was close to failure.

 

Hanzo did not wish to see the results, so he looked away.

 

And into the cowboy’s enraged face.

 

He almost physically reeled back, but his fighting instincts rose up and held him firmly in place, with Storm Bow ready to be drawn any moment.

 

He had only seen such a furious expression on the cowboy once before.

 

But he was not looking at Hanzo now--he was staring with wide eyes and an increasingly red face and deepening snarl out the entrance at the scene outside--at _someone_ outside, Hanzo realized, as he watched the cowboy’s eyes flick back and forth.

 

“Can’ be.”

 

The two words were full of quiet, white hot rage and not a drop of disbelief.

 

“Can’ be. No. Nonono.”

 

He sounded certain.

 

“Clear your flanks, then back it up,” he murmured, his words tightly controlled and almost robotic now, as if he was reciting something he learned by rote. “Check your friendlies’ positions, take a breath, and-- _aim, aim, aim.”_

 

The last three words were overlaid with a bellowing, raspy voice from outside and a cacophony of shotgun blasts:

 

_“Die, die, die!”_

 

“Son of a _bitch.”_

 

And the cowboy was out the door.

 

Hanzo stood there for a moment in something resembling shock--or perhaps he was waiting for the cowboy to almost immediately cry out in pain or to hear the jingle of spurs as his body crumpled to the ground.

 

But neither happened, so he moved a minute amount to look around the edge of the door. The cowboy’s life was potentially in his hands now, and he could not afford to make any hasty decisions that even approached what the cowboy had just done.

 

Outside, the last of the Talon defenders had fallen, their bodies scattered among the last dying sparks of their hardlight barrier--all of them save one.

 

The Reaper.

 

He was facing off against two Bastion units--but they seemed to be the last survivors of a squad. Whatever the cowboy had witnessed him do had left another four jerking like injured insects on the ground. The two of them were trying to pin down the Reaper, but as with Agent D.Va he was darting around them at close quarters and blasting at their weak points--and one of the Bastion units went down in short order, leaving the last to spin around and jump from side to side to try to avoid the blasts--and all to no avail.

 

But it served one last purpose: to distract the Reaper from the cowboy.

 

He was moving quickly, avoiding the random sprays of bullets with ease as he approached the duel, and just when the Bastion unit gave a high-pitched squeal and a lurch and stiffly fell to its side and the Reaper let out a long grounding laugh of victory--Hanzo saw the cowboy grab a stun grenade from his belt.

 

_“Reyes!”_

 

The Reaper only had time to jerk upright before the stun grenade burst almost directly in his face. He fell back a single step in his daze--and that’s when the cowboy reached him.

 

And punched him full-on in the face with his metal fist.

 

 _“You son of a bitch!”_ screamed the cowboy.

 

The Reaper’s head snapped back and he gave back another step, but that was all the ground he gave to a hit that should have knocked him unconscious--if not outright kill him.

 

But would a supersoldier even notice?

 

The cowboy was determined to be noticed.

 

He fell into a tight fighting pose and let fists fly, favoring his metal arm to deliver quick but hard blows to the Reaper’s--to Reyes’--head, chest, and abdomen. The Re-- _Reyes_ quickly shook off the grenade and tried to bring up a shotgun--but the cowboy was ready for him, with a hit that sent one shotgun tumbling across the ground and then _grabbing_ the other--and crushing it with a sharp pop of collapsing metal.

 

“No, you don’!” the cowboy shrieked. “No, you _don’,_ after what I went through! _I thought you were framed, you son of a bitch!”_

 

A clawed gauntlet caught the next blow, hardly giving at all under the force of the cowboy’s fury.

 

“Nope.”

 

And Reyes reached up with his other hand and tore away a bone-white mask from under his hood, throwing it to the ground.

 

The cowboy froze, eyes wide and staring.

 

“You see, _vaquero?_ You see what I became, for _them?”_

 

“Gabe--” the cowboy choked out.

 

 _“Reaper,”_ he growled.

 

And he twisted the cowboy’s arm and bodily threw him to the ground. The cowboy cried out in pain, but the cry became a howl of frustration when Reyes--when Reyes _dissolved,_ dissolved into a black mist that faded to nothing under the sun.

 

“Reyes! _Gabe!”_

 

But the cowboy’s only answer was a gravelly laugh that echoed between the abandoned buildings and faded away as quickly and completely as Reyes himself had.

 

And for a moment, everything was silent.

 

The cowboy gathered himself into a slumped over heap on the ground, clutching at his metal arm under his cape, his face overshadowed by the brim of his hat--and the silence was broken by a single, choked off sob.

 

He looked very small, huddled in the middle of an abandoned street.

 

But the moment did not last--it became clear that Reyes had fled for a reason.

 

The stomps of mechanical feet began to sound off the walls.

 

The cowboy did not react at first, and Hanzo was on the cusp at yelling a warning to break him out of whatever trance he had fallen into--but the cowboy looked up at last, looking down the way.

 

“Aw, hell,” he said, soft enough that Hanzo could hardly hear him--and there was no malice or frustration behind the words.

 

Only bone-deep fatigue.

 

Despite the risk of being spotted, Hanzo stepped out to see what was coming--if the cowboy could only look on with tired disappointment, then he did not think there was much hope.

 

And down the way, another Omnic squad had appeared--but they were not Bastion units.

 

It was a squad of OR-14 Centaur units.

 

Hanzo took in their heavy armor with a sinking heart as more and more appeared, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, their hooves pounding on the ground. All their joints were reinforced, and they could continue to move even with two of their four legs destroyed, and their sensory diodes were both tiny and redundant--it would take four arrows to blind even a single one.

 

They spotted the cowboy almost immediately--and began to gallop forward, turret arms raised.

 

“Shimada, get on out of here.”

 

Hanzo’s eyes snapped to the cowboy. He was not facing him, but he had gathered himself to his feet, revolver in hand, standing tall. He glanced at Hanzo over his shoulder and nodded at the wall. “Climb on up t’the roof and wait for the Orca. I’ll distract ‘em so they don’ notice you scamperin’.”

 

And he turned away.

 

Hanzo looked up at the wall behind him. And he looked at the cowboy, standing alone with a single gun against the onslaught.

 

And at that moment, it was easy to understand why Genji would listen to him.

 

Someone Genji would listen to was not to be wasted, given his brother’s earlier stunt.

 

And besides, there were many OR-14s, but they were also packed together--into a nice tidy target.

 

Lastly, the cowboy had chosen his words poorly:

 

Hanzo did not _scamper._

 

The only caveat was time--Hanzo would have to be in _front_ of the cowboy--the dragons were only harmless against allies.

 

Hanzo leapt forward, arrow nocked, his metal feet thundering lightly against the ground as he sprinted to put himself between the OR-14s and the cowboy in time. The cowboy, heedless, raised his revolver and took a deep breath, his shoulders rising under his cape. Trusting in the cowboy’s reflexes, Hanzo jumped in front of him with a yell--and with the dragons surging out of the space between ink and living skin.

 

_“Ryū ga waga teki wo kurau!”_

 

_“It’s high noon.”_

 

The bullets were invisible as they flew past Hanzo, of course, but their effects were clear--in less than a second, six of the OR-14s crashed to the ground, their heads split open and spilling electronics and sparks everywhere.

 

Hanzo’s jaw fell open. _What--_

 

But as the dragons roared and blossomed into a swirling storm, as they rent and tore at the remaining Omnics with shrieks and squeals of metal and the stench and grey-white smoke of burning silicon erupted into the air, his own amazement at the cowboy’s marksmanship and sheer speed fell by the wayside--

 

\--as he felt a bullet tear into his side.

 

Even after months of suspicion, even after expecting such a turn to come at any opportune moment, he surprised himself by not instantly thinking that the cowboy had chosen to end the threat to both Genji and Overwatch at long last. Perhaps it was the angle, from the side rather than behind, or perhaps it was because he had just seen six Omnics go down to the cowboy’s shots. As fast as he was, he could not possibly reload that quickly.

 

And admittedly, he had completely forgotten to check if Widowmaker had well and truly gone.

 

The confirmation came an instant later with the _crack_ of a sniper rifle.

 

The blue light and roar of the dragons had not yet faded when he was suddenly on his side, wheezing--and the cowboy’s red cape was fluttering in his face and getting in his eyes. He batted it away with a small growl, just in time to catch a glimpse of Widowmaker on the roof’s edge high above--and she was taking aim.

 

The cowboy’s metal hand was pressed against Hanzo’s side as he crouched protectively above him, red-hot pain burning under the almost crushing pressure, but the cowboy had his revolver pointed at Widowmaker.

 

Foolish, thought Hanzo with a grimace. He could not possibly hit her at this distance.

 

The revolver cracked three times.

 

 _“Merde!”_ swore Widowmaker--and she jumped back out of sight.

 

And beyond her, in the sky that had turned pink with the dawn, a jet roared past, low, low enough for the roar of its engines to be deafening.

 

“Didn’ get her,” said the cowboy hurriedly, holstering his revolver and grabbing hold of Hanzo’s right shoulder, fisting the material of his _kyudo-gi,_ “but close enough t’scare her off for a sec. C’mon, we gotta get back under cover!”

 

Hanzo blinked. Close enough to scare her? At such a distance? With a _revolver?_

 

But he did not prioritize his incredulity as the cowboy dragged him back into the waystation--every movement sent fire coursing through his abdomen and racing up and down his spine. _That_ was far more worrisome.

 

“Can you move your feet?” demanded the cowboy, eyes wide. “You collapsed right away--did she get--”

 

Hanzo flexed his prosthetic feet--the motion brought a surge of relief coursing through him. He was not paralyzed--she had not scored a hit on his spinal cord. If he could stand, there was a chance.

 

The ground trembled underneath--and a long drawn-out rumble arrived moments later. It was, without question, the product of a far larger explosion than any other that day.

 

The cowboy fumbled at his belt before exclaiming a wordless sound and bringing out a small vial of golden biotic fluid. “Won’ be enough,” he said, sound breathless, “but we can get the external bleeding stopped.” He took his metal hand away from Hanzo’s side--the cloth around the bullet hole was sodden with blood. Hanzo could feel it coursing down his back and abdomen before the cowboy tipped the entire vial through the hole. The pain abruptly ended at the surface of his skin, and the blood stopped--but his innards were still on fire.

 

Hanzo clenched his jaw as the cowboy rolled him onto his back. A gutshot. The internal bleeding would be massive--it was a wonder he was not dead already, but he would be, in minutes most likely--perhaps up to an hour, but no more, certainly no more than that.

 

It would be sooner than that. He could already tell--his limbs were already feeling heavier, as if he was back in his drinking shack and feeling the first effects of the baijiu.

 

Oh yes. It would be sooner rather than later.

 

Another explosion shook the ground, rattling the wiry remnants of the office furniture around them and shaking dust from the ceiling.

 

Fear rose up and clamped like a vise around his chest.

 

“Winston! Shimada’s been hit! We need Zenyatta _right_ _now!_ What’s the word on the Orca?” the cowboy shouted into the comm, pressing his hand on Hanzo’s side once more despite the healed outer wound, for all the good it would do.

 

 _“What?!”_ came the reply--from Genji. “No! McCree, the UN and JSDF have got the Orca pinned down! And--” There was a beat of silence, broken by a haggard intake of breath. “--and master’s been hit, too. He took a blast meant for Hana--he can’t walk.”

 

The cowboy almost seemed to seize up, staring sightlessly down at Hanzo, focused on his own hand pressed at Hanzo’s side.

 

Agent Tracer’s voice came on the line. “Jess,” she said, her voice anguished. “I don’t think we can come get you--the UN’s already got _fifteen_ jets above us--our only chance of getting out of here is shooting straight up and out to get away without getting shot down. We can’t-- _I_ can’t--”

 

“And they’re bombing the Omnium,” interjected Genji with cold fury. “The battalion has scattered all over, so they’re beginning to carpet bomb everything! Winston’s trying to get us safe passage, but--”

 

Hanzo reached up and plucked out his earpiece, not willing to listen to any more.

 

This was it.

 

He never would have expected to die in an abandoned Omnium, tagging along with his dead brother on some pretend-Overwatch mission, struck down by the world’s deadliest sniper while defending a cowboy from being left to die by humanity’s fallen savior.

 

But regardless of how it came to pass, the priority now was to remove all witnesses before his rapidly mounting terror could overpower his resolve.

 

“It is an elegant solution, is it not, cowboy?”

 

The cowboy looked at him sharply--and froze at the look in Hanzo’s eyes.

 

Hanzo did not blink. He swatted the cowboy’s hand away and pushed and dragged himself to slump his head against the nearest wall.

 

“You did not even have to do anything yourself--whatever your plan was, whatever moment you were waiting for--it is unnecessary now,” he said, panting slightly from the immense effort of moving a few dozen centimeters. “Everything has resolved itself. You will not even have to cover your tracks--if my body is not destroyed in the bombardment, Widowmaker’s bullet will clear you of any lingering suspicion, if anyone thinks to imagine any foulplay. But your performance has been impeccable--no one will suspect anything. If they--if Genji--blames you for leaving, tell him I insisted, or that we were separated by an explosion, or some such thing.” He paused and closed his eyes for a moment to battle back his pride which _still_ plagued him even now, before he looked back up at the cowboy crouching low to the ground. “Genji listens to you. If he is angry, your show of comradery these past weeks will help you convince him that it was not deliberate.

 

“If you cannot get to the Orca, you need only get out of the Omnium and away from the bombing. You can rendezvous with Overwatch elsewhere--back at the homestead perhaps. Head east and then south when you hit the mountains. It will likely be the most sheltered route.

 

“Now go.”

 

And he closed his eyes and drew in a breath, ignoring the wave of pain as his diaphragm jostled his injured organs, to center himself long enough for the cowboy to disappear so he would not hear the last cowardly gasps.

 

For a brief, insane moment, he wondered if the cowboy’s spurs would jingle as he walked away. Would he leave silently to give himself the best possible chance of escape--or would he want the sound to be the last Hanzo ever heard?

 

“Genji--are Zen’s orbs still active?”

 

Hanzo’s eyes popped open. The cowboy had indeed moved silently--he was now standing at Hanzo’s side, looking down at him--at his closed wound, his hand pressed against his earpiece.

 

“Yeah--yes! He used four of them on Hana and another two on me and Lena, but we still have two!”

 

The cowboy looked Hanzo straight in the eye. “Are you willing t’bring ‘em? I can’ get Shimada out of here by myself.”

 

“Of course,” came the instant reply.

 

 _“What are you--”_ Hanzo began furiously, but the cowboy squatted and pressed his hand to his mouth. Hanzo’s hands flew up to claw them--but it was his metal hand, and he was already weak--

 

“If you come, I’m gonna have the Orca take off without us. We’ll haveta get outta here on foot and meet up later.”

 

“Understood. On my way to your signal now.”

 

“Careful, Genji.”

 

 _“What are you doing?!”_ raged Hanzo as soon as he tore the cowboy’s hand away--or when the cowboy allowed him to tear his hand away. “You _fool!_ The farce is over! There is nothing to gain by risking Genji’s life this way--unless--” His eyes narrowed in fury. “Do you wish to further dress up your ‘intentions’ as genuine by having him come part-way before you flee?”

 

The cowboy looked down at him somberly. “Guess again.”

 

“There is no other reason!” Hanzo hissed.

 

“You sure?”

 

_“Yes!”_

 

“Then you’d be wrong.”

 

The words were said simply--with a trace of stoic mirth, but simply--and the cowboy _smiled._ Just a little, but he smiled, a tired, longsuffering smile.

 

Hanzo could only stare.

 

“You--” he began, but he did not know what to say.

 

The situation was impossible to understand--his brain felt like it was twisting and writhing in futile confusion--and only more so now that he was bleeding out. Spots began to appear in his vision as he struggled to comprehend the cowboy’s actions--it had to be an act. He would leave at any moment, or, or--

 

\--or gutpunch Hanzo to speed along his demise so that Genji would be greeted with a corpse and a mournful cowboy that had “done all he could” before he arrived.

 

That was the only thing that made sense, if it did not mean calling Genji into an active warzone where not only he but the cowboy himself might die at literally any moment. The farce made no sense, no sense at _all_ if it involved putting Genji in danger--that was what the cowboy was trying to avoid at all costs--was it not? Was it not?

 

Was it not?

 

But the theory that the cowboy was going to wait until the very last moment to kill or abandon him to give a crowning final stroke of verisimilitude to the whole performance was all Hanzo had, and so he waited for some sudden final blow as the minutes ticked by and the explosions rumbled past and Genji presumably got closer and closer.

 

But the cowboy did nothing but wait, his flesh fingers tapping at his revolver as he kept watch but making no move to draw it.

 

Soon, Hanzo wanted the blow to come. He could feel the life draining out of him, the pain in his abdomen dulling, his fingers beginning to tremble and twitch as the tips paled. Even having his head propped up seemed like it may be too much for his pounding heart to handle.

 

It was terrifying, this slow wait for death. It was exactly this, the wait, the knowledge of what was coming, the steady, certain approach, that he had feared most would be his fate when death came at last--a swift death was terrible enough, but at least it was _swift._

 

He could not help but think of the flash of green and silver, framed by wooden timbers and pink cherry blossoms, and how, after the impossible display of a dragon in reply to his own, it was comforting that it would be over quickly after all, that he would not be left burning and writhing and gasping and slowly, slowly, slowly--

 

\--just like--

 

\--but then--

 

\--instead, the blade had pressed against his throat and _stopped--_

 

\--and he had mentally begged it to press forward and _end_ him--

 

\--and then he had given up all pride and voiced his desire, now that it was so close, so close--

 

\--but it never came.

 

It never came, and suddenly Genji was there.

 

“Hanzo!”

 

Genji was there, dropping to his knees with a metallic _clang,_ wrapped up in his silver carapace to guard against and correct Hanzo’s mistakes, and in his hands were two orbs, pulsing with soft white light.

 

Genji moved to release the orb over Hanzo’s abdomen, over the wound and the blood pooling inside of him--but Hanzo grabbed his wrist.

 

Or tried to, but he was weak, so _weak,_ death was close, too close and not close enough, so his fingers scraped at Genji’s arm before they fell--but Genji caught them in his left hand, and it was warm, almost burning against his own cold flesh, and Hanzo focused on the burn as he struggled to speak.

 

“Genji--”

 

“Brother, don’t try to speak,” murmured Genji in Japanese. “Please, save your strength.”

 

“It must be now.”

 

And Genji froze, too, with the green visor trained on his face.

 

Hanzo struggled to force the words through the gathering fog, and they came out because they _needed_ to.

 

“Genji, it must be now. It must be _now._ You will lose your chance--you cannot wait for your anger to build again, you cannot wait to see clearly again. Strike, you must strike, strike _now_ or you will lose your chance to avenge yourself--”

 

“Hanzo,” said Genji, softly, too softly.

 

He was not listening.

 

He _never_ listened.

 

Hanzo would have screamed if he had the strength.

 

“Genji,” he whispered instead. He would _make_ him listen. “Genji, I destroyed you. I gave myself to the dragons before you knew you were about to die, before you could even try to defend yourself, before you knew what was happening.”

 

Genji’s hand trembled.

 

“Genji,” he said again, and warmth flowed down his face, blood or tears, he did not know. “Genji, I destroyed you. I was cruel. It was not clean, it was not hon--it was despicable. _I_ was despicable. Did I pierce your heart or cut your throat and grant you a quick death? No, Genji. I was cruel. Both of me were, when I gave myself to the dragons. I cut and sliced and mangled you from all sides, and it was not quick, it was not painless. One of me cut off your leg and the other cleaved your arm lengthwise in two, Genji--this arm, the arm with _your_ dragon,” he bit out, his voice hoarse, as he threw his hand at Genji’s right arm. “And then I cut you in two, Genji. _I cut you in half_ and scattered your body like ashes! Overwatch had to sew you back together from what was left!

 

“Genji--”  He drew in a deep shuddering breath. “Do not show me the mercy that I did not show you.”

 

He grabbed at Genji’s shoulder, his fingers finding purchase at last and closing and pinching at the unyielding metal, his nails turning white under the pressure.

 

“It is a mistake,” he whispered, imploring the thin green line to hear him, to agree with him. “A terrible mistake, and you must rectify it. Only _you_ can make it right, but you must do it _now_ while you have the chance. _Now,_ Genji. _Now!”_

 

Genji reached up and pried Hanzo’s fingers from his shoulder--but instead of throwing them off or breaking them one by one or _anything_ he should have done--he brought it down to his other hand, and squeezed them both gently in his too warm hand--

 

\--the hand that glowed white through the infrared glasses--

 

\--then--

 

\--he reached up to his mask--

 

Hanzo tried to look away.

 

But Genji dropped Hanzo’s hands and grabbed at his jaw, not letting him look away.

 

And the mask clicked and fell away.

 

Hanzo stared. The eyes were the same, completely the same, identical, to the eyes of a whole Genji a decade ago, but they were surrounded by scars--

 

\--but _not--_

 

\--but not by necrotic, rotting flesh.

 

The difference was stark. Hanzo could not help a little gasp of confusion. Where had--had Genji--had the doctor--

 

But no, he realized with a sudden and startlingly clear flash of memory to that night amid the timbers and cherry blossoms. The flesh had _never_ been necrotic or rotting.

 

When had he decided it was?

 

The skin was scarred, the skin was far darker than it had ever been when Genji had been ali--before Hanzo had mutilated him, but it was not dead or rotting. It was even almost smooth despite the scars, allowing Genji’s tears to flow down his cheeks unimpeded.

 

“You are right,” Genji said at last, his eyes shimmering under the thin sheen of water. “You are right, brother. You were cruel. You destroyed my body with all the rage you’d gathered over years and years, and you made sure I felt all of it. I know that, Hanzo. I have not forgotten. I will _never_ forget that.”

 

Hanzo’s tremors now matched his brother’s.

 

“And you are right: now is the time to rectify mistakes. Truth is in one's actions.”

 

And he leaned forward and pressed his warm, _living_ forehead to Hanzo’s, his achingly familiar eyes staring into Hanzo’s own.

 

“Hear me, brother, and believe what I say and do: you are forgiven. _And I will not let you die until you know it.”_

 

And suddenly Hanzo was on Genji’s shoulder, lifted into a fireman’s carry as he stood, as though Hanzo weighed nothing at all.

 

“Whoa there, careful!” exclaimed the cowboy, appearing at Hanzo’s side--the sudden motion was making his vision swim, but he did not faint and--the pain _did_ spike, but not--

 

“The first orb has stemmed the internal bleeding,” Genji told the cowboy firmly, his voice switching from normal to modulated in mid-sentence as his mask clicked back on. Hanzo started--had it been working on him all the while? “The second will keep him stable until we can move him without jostling him. Let’s get the hell out of here before it runs out of energy.”

 

“Don’ gotta tell _me_ twice.”

 

And they were moving, with Hanzo’s hip pressing into the vent on Genji’s shoulder and his torso and head bouncing against Genji’s back as he ran, as he _ran,_ even with Hanzo’s weight.

 

 _Why,_ thought Hanzo numbly as he watched the ground pass by Genji’s furiously pounding legs. Forgiveness was impossible.

 

_You’d be wrong._

 

Hanzo could not see where they were going, but he could not find it in himself to care. Feeling was returning to the ends of his fingers but he could process almost nothing through the numbness paralyzing his brain.

 

Because--

 

Because it seemed--

 

It seemed that Hanzo might be--

 

“God- _fucking_ -dammit! I am sick and tired of you fucking things! Get outta my way!” the cowboy growled under six rapid shots and six clangs and clunks of metal.

 

Genji laughed, the sound hollow and devoid of all humor. “It’s like Venice, isn’t it?”

 

The cowboy was completely silent after that--except for the unerring _crack_ of his revolver.

 

The minutes crawled by, but no sense or feeling seemed to work back into Hanzo’s mind. If anything, the numbness seemed to grow slightly thicker as time went on--almost in time with the smoke beginning to float across the sky above, dimming the light of dawn even as the wings on either side began to recede. The notion that they must be nearing the edge of the complex managed to break free and float to the surface of his consciousness, but he did not know what to do with such information.

 

After all, nothing made sense.

 

Nothing.

 

But something got through to him eventually.

 

_“Fuck.”_

 

The cowboy finally spoke again after so long--and he did not sound pleased. Genji slid to a stop so abrupt that Hanzo’s legs swung forwards and back, his knees knocking against Genji’s chest plate.

 

“McCree,” said Genji, sounding tense and out of breath but calm. “We need to go back before the UN notices them.”

 

“Naw, we can’ go back now--we’re too close to gettin’ out, and the orb’s almost gone. We can’ keep movin’ him like this. Listen, I’ll go around the side--”

 

“Vetoed,” said Genji immediately.

 

“Aw, c’mon,” said the cowboy with a brave attempt to sound nonchalant and confident, “you ain’ even heard it yet.”

 

“Save it for when there’s less than ten of them,” Genji shot back. “Come on, we’ll circle back and cut through the--”

 

From the right came the sudden sound of clanking feet. Genji and the cowboy swore as one before the cowboy dropped the sudden intruder with his revolver--loudly.

 

“Get back, get back t’the--” the cowboy cut himself off.

 

More sounds of clanking, more reinforcements, this time from all sides.

 

“Climb up the wall, Genji,” said the cowboy, with the same deadened tone he had had when he had told Hanzo to flee. “Get on out of here.”

 

“I can’t,” came the terse reply. “I can’t climb with someone hanging off me. We gotta get out of this together somehow.”

 

The cowboy was silent for a moment as the Omnics thundered closer.

 

“Well. We’ll go down swingin’.”

 

Another pause. The thunder grew.

 

“Guess so.”

 

_“Hey! Qīfù rén! Chángcháng zhège!”_

 

There was a blast of intense cold air and the grinding, crunching sound of--ice?

 

Immediately followed by the sound of a pulse rifle.

 

“Clearing the area!” shouted Agent Pharah from somewhere nearby. “Hey, guys, how’s it going? Can’t talk, saving your asses, let’s meet up later. Mei! Ten o’clock!”

 

“Got him!” Agent Mei sang out, sounding far too cheerful for the situation. “Ice wall’s almost down, though--how’s the teleporter coming?”

 

“The teleporter will be online shortly,” said Ms. Vaswani, as calm and collected and businesslike as she had been during the assault on the Satellite Campus. “Maintain the perimeter for a few more moments.”

 

“For sure!” laughed Agent Mei, and the whole situation was so unbelievable, so preposterous, that Hanzo summoned the last of his strength to lift his head to see what kind of hallucination had been brought on by plummeting blood pressure.

 

Well. At the very least, the cowboy looked exactly as Hanzo felt.

 

“What in tarnation are _you_ doing here?!” he demanded, gesticulating wildly at the Vishkar agent, standing nearby near a pool of blue-white light on the ground.

 

“Fight now, questions later, cowboy!” called Agent Pharah. She was dressed in her combat fatigues and heaving around a pulse rifle that looked identical to Soldier: 76’s--and it likely was, because she immediately fired a round of rockets from its concealed launcher that spun away and impacted with deadly effect on a charging OR-14, which crashed to the ground, sending chips of gravel flying. “Help me out! The teleporter back needs another minute to charge and cover the distance!”

 

The cowboy scowled but rushed to help, his revolver already cracking.

 

“Didn’t you come by teleporter?” Genji asked the Vishkar agent harshly, turning Hanzo away to face her himself. Hanzo tried to crane his neck to keep her in view--he still could not believe that she was here.

 

“No, teleporters require an operator at both ends to set up,” she replied, unruffled by his tone. “The other terminus is already set up and being guarded by Agent Torbjörn.”

 

“Is it?” he said doubtfully.

 

“Indeed. You must trust in me only for the duration of the current emergency--I will not be insulted when it is withdrawn afterward.”

 

After a pair of seconds, Genji grumbled, “Just hurry.”

 

“Understood. The Orca has successfully escaped and is redezvousing with us at the homestead. Agent Zenyatta will treat Agent Shimada enroute to Gibraltar.”

 

“Good.” Genji’s tone was softer.

 

“Teleporter online! I have opened the path!” called the Vishkar agent, raising her voice over the musical tone of the open wormhole. “Agent Genji, Agent Shimada has priority.”

 

“Here goes,” said Genji, and Hanzo saw him place his hand on his _wakizashi_ before he stepped forward.

 

There was a microsecond flash of white light--

 

\--and the immediate sound of guns being cocked all around him.

 

“Stay where you are! Don’t move!”

 

“It’s him! Put him down, _Omnic!_ What have you done to him?!”

 

“I do not speak Ainu,” said Genji slowly and clearly in Japanese, almost dropping Hanzo as he tried to hold his arms out. “What did you say?”

 

“I _said_ put Ifukube down _right now_ or I will shoot you right in the CPU, Omnic!”

 

_Asai?!_

 

Hanzo tried to twist around and see whether yet another probable hallucination was real or not--but his limbs were feeling heavy again, and he could do nothing but weakly struggle. Genji was already lowering him gently to the ground, making sure his head did not strike the ground too hard, even as there were more flashes of white light and more shouting and the sound of scuffling and struggles--before Genji was roughly shoved away and Asai’s worn and worried face was suddenly centimeters from his own.

 

“Ifukube! What’ve they done to you, boy?” she asked fretfully. “When did they capture you? What did they do to you?”

 

“Asai?” Hanzo managed to croak, still reeling from her impossible appearance. “How--?”

 

“We heard the Omnium’s started up again,” she said darkly. “So we came to knock you over the head and get you out. Did someone beat us to it? Or,” she whispered, leaning in. “Are these the people you told me about?”

 

“N-no,” he stuttered, struggling to understand. “No, he is my brother, these are--Agent Torbjörn! What have you done to him?” He tried to sit up, but it was getting increasingly impossible to move.

 

“The garden gnome?” asked Asai. “He’s over there--he keeps saying he’s Overwatch, but we--”

 

“He _is_ Overwatch!” spat Hanzo, and his sudden rage gave him the strength to shoot upright. “He is Overwatch, and so is--”

 

He was surrounded by a loose group of bushy bearded men and tattooed women, all with Ainu bowlcuts and all holding an Overwatch agent and the Vishkar agent by the arm with hunting rifles pressed into their sides. All were standing in the middle of the driveway between the garages and the houses of the homestead--of the _homestead._

 

“How did you know where to find me?” he hissed, grabbing at the front of Asai’s thick jacket.

 

She had the audacity to roll her eyes. “Boy, if you think I let you fuck off to this place every winter for six years without--”

 

Puzzle pieces fell out of the descending fog in his brain and snapped together.

 

“And you put it in your computer, the same one you used to track the UN’s movements,” he spat into her surprised face, “and the Sombra Collective only had to look through the hard drives of a single village to find me!”

 

“Sombra Collective?” asked Asai, bewildered.

 

“And now my home’s exact location is available to the highest bidder,” Hanzo snarled as his grip weakened and he began to fall back, “and I can _never_ return because of you!”

 

“What?”

 

“He’s blacking out!” Genji suddenly interjected, struggling against his captor holding his arms behind his back. “He needs medical attention! He’s bleeding internally! Did you bring medical supplies?”

 

Asai’s face whitened. “Internal bleeding? We don’t have anything for that, we need to get him to--”

 

“There’s no time!” Genji yelled--

 

\--just as the cowboy blurted, “He’s got another orb! In his cello case! Lemme go, you ass, we gotta--”

 

“Ifukube,” said Asai urgently, leaning towards Hanzo. “Can we trust them? I need to know, now, yes or no!”

 

“Ha,” breathed Hanzo as his head thunked against the cracked concrete. “They trust _me,_ the fools.”

 

He stared straight up at the sky, blue and clear and increasingly dark above the eaves of his beloved homestead and under the risen sun, and sound was fading with the light, the shouts all around him disappearing into the same darkness creeping from the edges of his vision.

 

This was not how he wished to leave the homestead, his brain supplied out of the gathering gloom.

 

But, in all honesty, he had never wished to leave his home.

 

He closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Nǐ shì yīgè qíguài de jiǔguǐ." - 你是一個奇怪的酒鬼。 - You are a strange drunkard.  
> “Nǐ bùbì lái kàn wǒ le.” - 你不必來看我了。 - You did not have to come and see me.  
> [Mei's other lines in Mandarin are taken from the Quotes page of the Overwatch Wikia.](http://overwatch.wikia.com/wiki/Mei/Quotes)
> 
> So, everyone on Tumblr who has been expecting the gutshot for literal months--
> 
> \--how'd it turn out? :3c
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and for your patience!! The next chapter will not take anywhere near as long, I assure you, but I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone on Tumblr who supported me and encouraged me despite how very long this took--thank you so much!!!
> 
> And more artists have very kindly gifted stupendous artwork based on _Afterdrop_!!!
> 
> First, [Freebooter4Ever](http://freebooter4ever.tumblr.com) drew [this beautiful depiction of KITTENS! KITTENS! KITTENS! And two soft men.](http://freebooter4ever.tumblr.com/post/173107062944/pastoral-scenes-tight-pants-and-kittens-in) Every single creature in this is adorable and must be protected.
> 
> Second, [Metmarfil](http://metmarfil.tumblr.com) drew [Hanzo in his Wood Carving Outfit, which 100% requires a super-tight sweater.](http://metmarfil.tumblr.com/post/173107208745) Right? Right? Right. Hanzo just--he's just. He's just very attractive, okay.
> 
> Third, [Sukuiddo](http://sukuiddo.tumblr.com) drew these [WONDERFUL renditions of Hanzo and Zenyatta from Chapter Ten and Hanzo indulging in his hobby--and doing what is "necessary" with the results.](http://sukuiddo.tumblr.com/post/173326916706/k-ive-been-hibernating-actually-i-kinda-left) I honestly didn't want to think too deeply about Hanzo burning his creations, and then Sukuiddo happened and--goodness me. ;.; But somehow I missed these beautiful pieces when they were first made--I apologize, Sukuiddo!!! Thank you so much for drawing these!!!
> 
> And last, [Kitsune2022](http://kitsune2022-artish.tumblr.com) has [surpassed everything I have ever done with a cat in a lap. Whose lap, you ask? You know who.](http://kitsune2022-artish.tumblr.com/post/175758718727/ok-one-more-quick-something-because-i-was) And It Is Glorious.
> 
> THANK YOU ALL so very much!! Your generosity and artwork is absolutely stunning, thank you!!!
> 
> And--AND-- _Afterdrop_ reached 3,000 kudos!!! I can offer no other words but thank you, thank you, thank you--your kudos and your comments and your support have all just been a constant delight that I've come back to again and again. I can't express how amazing you all are.
> 
> Thank you.


	21. A Surprise or Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank-you to [NoizyCat](https://noizycat.tumblr.com/), [Mad-Valkerie](http://mad-valkyrie.tumblr.com/), and an Anon on Tumblr for providing German translations for Angela and Zenyatta's conversation! I apologize for removing the proper punctuation, but, y'know. Anesthesia and all that. Thank you for coming through on such short notice!!!
> 
> And thank you also to everyone who offered to help!!!

For a brief moment, he thought he was at the bottom of a well, drowning under the water.

 

The feeling swiftly passed--the feeling of drowning, at least, the panic in his chest fading as quickly as it came. The feeling of being immersed deep underwater remained, complete with low, deadened sound and wavery light filtering down to him. He was distantly aware that his limbs were moving as though drifting with the current--he was certainly not moving them himself.

 

He had not been _aware_ of having limbs, for one. How could he have moved them?

 

But no, of course he had limbs.

 

And he had eyes, too, most likely. He almost smiled at the thought-- _most likely._ Ha.

 

And he did, he could tell, but it was extremely hard to open them for some reason--it was almost like they were glued shut.

 

Or maybe his eyelids were just immensely heavy, because he did manage to get them open just a little, just a crack, just enough for a sliver of piercing white light to stab at them, which was not satisfactory at _all._

 

How dare it.

 

Despite the pain, it felt good to conquer the heaviness--he was quite certain that it should not be so hard, so of course he had to prove it was not--so he stared at the painful white sliver for a good long time before he allowed it to close again.

 

There. That should show it.

 

After a while, a noise, louder and sharper through the haze, alerted him that he was not sleeping.

 

Well, then, he might as well give opening his eyes another try.

 

This time they popped open, and he immediately regretted it. He winced at the veritable flood of scathing light and he tried to throw his arm across his eyes to shield them--and he immediately regretted that, too, because he did not see his own hand coming in time to avoid slapping at his own eyes.

 

“--san don--”

 

Sound was becoming clearer, but only clear- _er._ It was still incomprehensible. The tone of it, however, was unmistakably concerned and soothing, so he hardly even jolted when icy cold fingers took hold of his wrist and gently tugged his arm away from his face.

 

The light, which had been mostly white with a few blurry, washed out, indeterminate colors mixed in, was abruptly overlaid with a golden hue, and the pain of it immediately ceased. He sighed and his entire body relaxed--he had not even realized that almost every muscle had seized up, but now it felt good to let them all unwind from the sudden painful onslaught.

 

He finally thought to close his eyes, too, cutting off the light and colors but not the golden hue--it somehow overlaid the blackness in a way that he could not see, promising comfort and fortitude against whatever happened.

 

He drew in another breath, let it out in a long sigh, and opened his eyes again.

 

No eyes, no mouth. An indescifrable face was looking at him.

 

There were only lines--and blue lights in its forehead.

 

He felt that he should have found it fairly terrifying, but even his startlement was slow almost to the point of non-existence. He could only stare.

 

“er scheint mich nicht zu verstehen doktor aber seine vitalfunktionen stabilisieren sich gut ich versuche herauszufinden wieso die anästhesie vorzeitig abgeklungen ist ich melde mich in ein paar minuten bei dir halte ihn in der zwischenzeit so ruhig und bewegungslos wie möglich verstanden”

 

It took an embarrassing amount of time to realize that two people were speaking somewhere, but he could not figure out where they were, and the eyeless face continued to stare at him, freezing him in place. It moved abruptly, coming closer.

 

Now the fear rose up in him.

 

Get away, get away, get away, he had to get away, but he could not, he had to break whatever hold it had on him, what was it _doing_ to him--

 

“mccree i dont think he recognizes me”

 

\--get _away--_

 

“come over here slowly slowly hes almost yanked the iv out try to distract him for a moment”

 

“Agent Shimada?”

 

He blinked a few times as his eyes snapped to a new face.

 

Oh.

 

Well.

 

This face was _much_ better.

 

This face was not only decipherable, it was _handsome._

 

Wait.

 

Who?

 

Oh.

 

Shimada was--

 

A surge of something black welled up in his chest and stomach, churning and snarling and biting.

 

No, _not_ Shimada, not Shimada, something else--it was important for this handsome stranger to call him something else.

 

“H--”

 

“You’re okay, Agent Shimada, it’s just us, Agent McCree and Agent Zenyatta. You remember? Listen, you have an IV in your arm, so just--”

 

“Han--”

 

“What? What’s that?”

 

His tongue and lips refused to form a single word, but they did manage to grimace, his earlier fear bleeding away into simple dismay.

 

Just his luck--a man this handsome had no business seeing him like this--and he was a _cowboy,_ too, if the hat was anything to go by--he had to jump on this one quick--

 

“Han--zo.”

 

The cowboy had been moving closer, eyes wide with something resembling worry, but they widened further still as he stopped dead.

 

“Uh--what’s that?” he asked, looking utterly bewildered as he raised a hand to press against his cowboy hat.

 

Hanzo watched the motion bemusedly--a _cowboy--_ before he realized he had been asked a question. Thankfully, his mouth seemed more willing to obey now, even if he still struggled to slowly say, “Hanzo. Call me Hanzo.”

 

And he winked.

 

The cowboy seemed to take a few moments to process the sight--then Hanzo had the immense pleasure to see his pretty dark, dark brown eyes--they were _beautiful_ \--widen still further and his face flush darker, and he placed a big hand over his mouth, pressing down over his lovely goatee that was _just_ scruffy enough to look carefree and _just_ trimmed enough to look damn good.

 

Adorable.

 

Hanzo could not help a wide smile--what a reaction. This would be fun.

 

“So,” he said, pitching his voice lower. He was lying down, so he tried to shuffle up on his elbows--

 

\--then one elbow--

 

\--then he had to hope that the cowboy had not noticed that he could not, but he had already thought of a line that might distract him even if he had.

 

“So. Is that cowboy hat just for show, or do you know how to _ride?”_

 

Not his best work--he judged all his pickup lines by what Genji would think of them, and Genji would have laughed himself hoarse at this one--but it got his point across.

 

Perhaps too well.

 

The cowboy did not react, standing motionless for a few moments--in an almost _heterosexual_ way.

 

Pity.

 

But at least it meant it was a good thing Hanzo had not struggled to his elbows. It would have been for nothing.

 

“Sorry,” he said with a heaving sigh and a frown as he lay his head back, the words feeling all-the-thicker in his mouth through his disappointment. “I didn’t realize you were straight.”

 

“No, it’s not that,” the cowboy said hurriedly, almost automatically, and then he paused and swore under his breath--but Hanzo had already lifted his head back up, eyes alight.

 

“Oh?” he said with polite, pointed interest.

 

The cowboy looked thoroughly flummoxed, switching his hand from his mouth to scratch distractedly at the back of his head, almost posing with his bicep flexed while revealing his nicely reddened face under the scruff and stubble. He shifted on his feet, and Hanzo was delighted to hear the jingle of _spurs,_ partially because anything that made the cowboy more cowboy was one hundred and ten percent welcome, and partially because looking down at the cowboy’s boots, ostensibly for the noise, was an excellent opportunity to give his physique a quick onceover.

 

It turned out to be hard to look only once.

 

The cowboy was wearing a jumpsuit of all things, and it was a hideous brown color at that, but conveniently it did not disguise his wide shoulders and his powerful chest and his thick arms and his nicely muscled midsection and his-- _ahem_ \--and his stocky legs.

 

Mm.

 

But Hanzo kept it quick--the cowboy seemed more than a little uncomfortable, and Hanzo was not one of _those_ guys, so he swept his eyes down and swept them up and kept them up--but he might not have been as quick or as discreet as he meant to be. The cowboy’s blush was intensifying again by the time he got back to his face.

 

He was still adorable, but Hanzo was not one to revel in causing _too_ much embarrassment. That was Genji’s perennial mistake, and Hanzo had seen how it played out far too often to make it himself.

 

Besides, he might be uncomfortable because he was taken!

 

The sudden thought was disheartening, especially since surely _someone_ would have caught him up by now. How could they not?

 

But Hanzo would lose nothing from finding out.

 

“Can I see your gun?” he asked, softening the smile that had returned in full force to his face.

 

“What?” the cowboy said slowly as he placed a hand protectively on the revolver in the large holster at his waist that Hanzo had spotted, obviously thrown by the non-sequitur. “Uh, no. No, that would be a real bad idea, see, because--”

 

“Oh,” said Hanzo, letting the corners of his lips droop a little in good-natured disappointment. “Are you saying I don’t got a shot?”

 

The cowboy huffed a little at that, which counted as a laugh _and_ as a point in Hanzo’s court as far as he was concerned. But then he shook his head a little. “Seriously, though, Ag-Ha--uh, Hanzo--” he said slowly and clearly yet stumbling a bit over Hanzo’s name, which was not as good a sign. “You’re not in your right mind. You’re hurt, real bad. You’re in the--you’re in a hospital, and Agent Zenyatta--our medic--has you on a pretty powerful anesthetic. You’re high as a kite right now. You don’t even, uh--you don’t even remember who we are.”

 

Hanzo listened with his face falling into a rather bemused expression. Hurt? Hospital? He looked around doubtfully, rolling his head to one side--he was lying in a big room with a very high ceiling with a table and a couch in one corner and some strange-looking seats against two walls and a large staircase that led up somewhere. It really did not look like a hospital--but he _was_ lying on a hard bed, and at his side--

 

The eyeless face was back at his side.

 

This time, though, before Hanzo could try to force his heavy limbs to scurry away too much, he suddenly recognized it. “Oh,” he said, sounding slow even to himself. “You’re a robot.”

 

The robot tilted its head to one side. “That’s not the preferred term, but close,” it said, and this time Hanzo recognized where the voice came from even though its mouth was not moving, which helped his fear considerably. “But please stop moving--you’ll tear the IV out.” It gestured with a metal hand at Hanzo’s arm, and there was indeed a huge needle at the end of four or five plastic tubes filled with red, gold, and clear liquids.

 

Hanzo stared at it for a few moments before looking back up. “Are you a robot doctor?”

 

“I’m a medic,” said the robot patiently.

 

“Alright,” Hanzo said with more than a little doubt. There was something wriggling in the back of his mind, and it felt as if it were trying to get away from this robot doctor--but if it was a doctor, and the cowboy seemed okay with it, maybe it was okay. But he looked back to the cowboy as soon as possible--he was far more pleasant to look at. “Does that mean you’re the nurse?” he asked with a small smirk.

 

“No,” said the cowboy with another little huff of a laugh. “I’m--I’m your--I’m your boss, you could say. Or your, uh--”

 

“My boss?” said Hanzo contemplatively. He squinted at the cowboy, studying him. He did not ring a bell in the slightest--but if it was true, that would be a severe disappointment. He should not be hitting on his boss.

 

Damn, but it probably drove him crazy to work so closely with such a good-looking man. It was Irino-san all over again, in reverse.

 

“Well, alright, then,” Hanzo said, settling his head back again. “I’ll just let this robot doctor--what happened, anyway?” he suddenly asked--he probably should have asked that sooner, he supposed, but who could blame him? He had been distracted.

 

The cowboy took a moment or two to answer. “You got hurt,” he said at length. “We’re taking you to one of the best doctors in the world to help you.”

 

Hanzo frowned up at the ceiling high above. “But what _happened?”_ he asked more pointedly, recognizing the cowboy’s evasive tone.

 

The cowboy heaved a sigh. “You got--poisoned,” he said, and Hanzo flicked his eyes from the ceiling to the cowboy’s face, looking at him over his own chest with eyebrows raised.

 

“Oh,” he said, feeling slow again--the energy he had rallied in the presence of an attractive man was beginning to wane. “That’s not good.”

 

The cowboy was biting his bottom lip, looking worried. “It’s not something Agent Zenyatta can fix, so we’re taking you to Angie--to Dr. Ziegler as quick as we can.”

 

“Yes,” agreed the robot doctor at his side, recapturing his attention. “And it would be best if you closed your eyes and tried not to move. You’re going to be fine, but the lower we keep your heart rate, the slower the poison will spread.”

 

“Ok, Dr. Robot,” said Hanzo as he settled back and rearranged his limbs somewhat--if they did not want him to move, they should have a more comfortable bed, honestly. But a softer bed was probably unnecessary--his energy seemed almost to be bleeding away, no doubt at least somewhat due to just how leaden his arms and legs felt.

 

They could also stand to dim the lights a little bit, he thought crossly as he closed his eyes, only to stare into the sullen red of his own eyelids. He almost demanded they do just that--but his brain, his wonderful, delightful brain that missed no details even under heavy anesthetic, hit upon one last great idea.

 

“Hey--hey, cowboy,” he called out, opening his eyes and noting that he had to act fast because even _that_ was getting hard again.

 

“What--what do you need?” asked the cowboy, sounding hesitant.

 

“Come here for a moment.”

 

“Uh--”

 

Hanzo tilted his head up just in time to see the cowboy shift his belt--oh, he even had an enormous belt buckle, too, how had he missed that?--rotating his holster and gun behind his back before he began to walk forward.

 

Prudent. Hanzo had a feeling that not much got past this man, and that was yet another point in his favor-- _why_ did he have to be his boss?

 

“What do you need, H-Hanzo?”

 

Oh, if nothing else, Hanzo really needed to break that habit of stumbling over his name. It sounded good in his deep, smooth voice--once he said it.

 

The cowboy was now standing over him at his side, looking down while turned slightly away to keep his gun well out-of-reach. All the better, Hanzo thought, unable to suppress the tiniest smirk. True to his supposition, the cowboy saw it immediately and narrowed his eyes slightly, but his focus was still on keeping the gun away. Hanzo was thankful for the unexpected help, but he could hardly keep from glancing at his real target when the light glinted off the medallion set into the hatband.

 

“Come closer,” he whispered, keeping his voice neutral to avoid insinuating anything that might scare the cowboy off. “I need to tell you something.”

 

The cowboy bit his bottom lip for a moment before he leaned over. “What?” he murmured, eyes still slightly narrowed.

 

Quick as a flash--so quick that it nearly startled Hanzo himself--his non-IVed arm darted up and snatched the cowboy’s hat.

 

“H-hey!” the cowboy protested, almost snatching it back--but at the last moment he froze.

 

Hanzo couldn’t help the grin of victory that nearly split his face as soon as he had the hat. He scooted away from the cowboy, just a little, as he inspected his prize. “Yes,” he said, running his fingers along the brim and looking over the thin, worn cloth lining the interior. “Yes, this will do nicely.”

 

And he plopped the hat over half his face, with the inner sweatband resting on the bridge of his nose. It shut out a good portion of the light, and when he closed his eyes he was greeted with a welcoming soft blackness. A whiff of tobacco smoke drifted into his nostrils, but it was old and faint and not the least bit intolerable.

 

He sighed in contentment. “More than adequate. Thank you, cowboy. You may have this back when I am finished with it.”

 

Because, speaking completely honestly, sometimes he _was_ that guy.

 

With the darkness came an almost immediate sense of a current within the weight on his limbs, dragging him deeper. He welcomed it wholeheartedly now that he was as comfortable as he was likely to be, letting unconsciousness rise up to meet him.

 

Just before it took him, however, it drew back like a spooked animal when the voice of a woman intruded on his thoughts.

 

“Holy shit. Did that really just happen?” The cowboy grumbled something, and the woman stifled a laugh.

 

Yes, thought Hanzo, his lips curling into a smirk. It really did.

 

And he allowed the darkness to rise and claim him.

 

_-_-_

 

Hanzo woke with the eaves of the homestead still imprinted in his vision against the clear blue sky.

 

It was almost like an afterimage left over by staring into a bright light, and it faded to black like one, too--it was hard to tell if he was seeing it with his body’s eyes or his mind’s eye.

 

Either way, when it had gone and left him staring despondently into the blackness for however long, it occurred to him that the homestead was not coming back, so he might as well open his eyes.

 

He blinked them open in the softer-than-expected light to find he was half-reclined in a hospital bed, staring at the outlines of his own legs under the white linen of a bedsheet that was drawn up and tucked snugly across his waist, leaving his stomach and chest bare but for at least a dozen sensors plastered to his skin. A few clustered next to the dragon’s tail over his heart, with the others scattered more or less randomly about, their wires trailing over his skin and over his right side.

 

He shifted experimentally, seeing how much movement they allowed, but a slight pinching in his right arm drew his attention to an IV line with a truly remarkable number of clear plastic tubes attached, filled with various red, gold, and clear liquids--and he apparently had had another in his left arm, too, judging by the bandage wrapped around his elbow, starkly white against the blue and gold ink of his tattoo.

 

He reached over with his left hand, frowning at the clumsy feeling saturating the limb, to feel at his right side, but the skin was almost completely smooth--he might only be imagining the slightest of bumps where he thought the bullet may have hit. Virtually no physical damage was left over--but then again, given what Dr. Ziegler must be used to dealing with--

 

Only then did he become aware of his jaw. It was clenched tightly, his teeth feeling almost gummy against each other with a combination of what must be several days’ worth of plaque and sheer pressure gluing them together. He tried to force it to relax, but the stray thought of Dr. Ziegler’s--experience--had somehow, impossibly, winched his jaw even tighter, and it was not coming loose.

 

Worse, it drove back the thin veneer that had lain over his turbulent mind.

 

His head fell back against a pillow resting at the base of his neck as he stared sightlessly up at the ceiling. The details of the mission--

 

\--the cowboy--

 

_\--Genji--_

 

\--were stewing like a vat of hot, smoking oil on the verge of flashover.

 

How.

 

_Why._

 

Two simple questions, applied in myriad ways, in seemingly infinite combinations, circling around two people and each other like sharks in bloodied water snapping blindly at each other, and all overshadowed by the sense that he should not even be able to contemplate them at all--because he should be dead.

 

He should be dead, but he was not.

 

_Why._

 

A soft, low humming sound reached his ears, and despite how unassuming and unobtrusive it was, his head snapped to the side--and it was a wonder that his teeth did not shatter under the pressure he subjected them to.

 

The cowboy was looking mildly at him, his hat missing, seated in a plastic chair placed next to an immense window that took up nearly all of the wall in the small room. Hanzo had no eyes whatsoever for the view it offered--he focused with laser-like intensity on the cowboy, who had the decency to look at least a little bit wary under his gaze, but he was certainly not cowed or driven back by it. He stood his ground despite sitting, returning Hanzo’s stare with a look that was as neutral as Hanzo had ever wished his own to be.

 

After what must have been a full two minutes of silence, the cowboy cleared his throat and said quietly, “Dr. Ziegler’s on her way. She’s finishin’ up dischargin’ D.Va.”

 

Silence.

 

“She’s just about here. Do you want me t’leave?”

 

Silence.

 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” the cowboy asked, and a note of hesitancy finally creeped into his voice, though Hanzo could hardly tell if he was pleased or disgusted by it--he could hardly process anything beyond the pressure in his jaw and a kind of disbelieving frustration that was driving everything else from his mind, pushing aside such lesser things as the capacity for speech.

 

Why.

 

The cowboy blew a short puff of air from his nose at the continued silence. “Well,” he said slowly, “I ain’ leavin’ unless you tell me to. Ain’ the best for you t’be alone in a strange place right now.” He paused for a moment, sighed, and barreled on. “I’d--I’d get Mei or Lúcio or maybe Winston, but they ain’ here. They, uh--they’re on the team pickin’--pickin’ up Genji, Tor, and Ms. Vaswani. They hadta stay behind because Ms. Asai refused t’let Ms. Vaswani go. She heard somehow that Talon used Vishkar tech t’breach the Omnium, but Winston managed t’talk her down, so--Angie, D.Va, and me are the only ones you know on base right now.”

 

Hanzo listened to the explanation almost without understanding, especially when Genji was mentioned, throwing more chum in with the sharks.

 

The cowboy fell silent, and the two men simply stared at each other. The cowboy only looked away when a soft beep sounded somewhere in the room and a soft whoosh of air announced an opened door.

 

It took Hanzo a few moments more to tear his eyes away from the cowboy’s profile, when he realized he was being addressed.

 

“Agent Shimada?” asked Dr. Ziegler softly. “Can you understand me?”

 

Hanzo swallowed and tried to speak, but his jaw did not loosen in the slightest. For a moment he was seized by the childish urge to stubbornly sit there and stare until the two Overwatch agents took the hint and left without him having to say a word, but he quickly thrust it back down. One should not trifle with doctors--who knew what he might be diagnosed with if he allowed it.

 

So he nodded, the motion somehow slow and jerky at once.

 

Dr. Ziegler nodded back, her shoulders relaxing slightly under her white labcoat thrown casually over a pink blouse. “Good. You can just nod or shake your head, then,” she said with a small smile, adapting easily to his unwillingness--or inability--to speak. He himself had not yet figured out which.

 

She took a small tablet out of her pocket and lit up the screen before she asked, “Are you in pain?”

 

It was a wonder she did not simply turn on a biotic beam to find out, given his track record, he thought sourly. As it was, it was something of a relief to truthfully shake his head no--and to have something to focus on outside of himself.

 

“Good. Now--you’re in the medical wing of Watchpoint: Gibraltar. You’ve been unconscious for three days. Do you remember the battle?”

 

A curt nod.

 

“All of it?”

 

A _very_ curt nod.

 

“Do you remember going through the teleporter?”

 

Nod.

 

“Do you remember the homestead?”

 

A nod that he allowed to be hesitant.

 

She seemed to understand his intent. “Is that when it gets fuzzy? Or the last thing you remember?” she added when he hesitated too long, unsure how to answer.

 

He jerked his head up and down, unwilling to think too long about Asai’s meddling.

 

She tapped at the tablet’s screen with a small frown of concentration before she looked up again. “Do you remember any of your journey on the Orca? Agent Zenyatta and I had to adjust the anesthetic at one point because you regained consciousness.”

 

Hanzo blinked and knitted his eyebrows together. He wracked his brain, but nothing beyond that last glimpse of the homestead surfaced, so he shook his head.

 

Dr. Ziegler hummed a little. “That’s not uncommon,” she said as she typed away on the tablet. “It’s likely you won’t remember.” She looked up with a somber expression. “To be honest, it was something of a relief that you woke up at all, and that you were somewhat communicative when you did. There was some question about the effects of the poison that had infiltrated your system.”

 

Hanzo narrowed his eyes, but his jaw did not loosen enough for him to demand that she explain.

 

She seemed to be waiting for him to do just that--but mercifully only for a few seconds. A test, perhaps. “The bullet Widowmaker used was laced with a neurotoxin,” she said briskly. “Luckily, Agent Zenyatta recognized that something other than internal bleeding had led to you losing consciousness and contacted me immediately, and I directed him to begin a blood replacement procedure to remove as much toxin from your body as possible while nanobots tried to identify it. It’s fortunate there was enough artificial blood on hand for both you and Agent D.Va--we had to replace your entire blood volume in the Orca, and then again once you landed.”

 

A chill ran through Hanzo, and he glanced involuntarily at the IV still in his arm. Hearing that his blood had been replaced--twice--conjured up a brief, irrational fear that his veins would be some strange color, orange or yellow or magenta--but they were blue and green under his skin, of course, as they had been when he first examined his arm. Artificial blood used the exact same hemoglobin as natural blood.

 

“Thanks to Agent Zenyatta, it was not as close call as it could have been, but the trauma to your internal organs was severe,” she said quietly, recapturing his attention. She looked cautious now, and spoke slowly. “When you landed, I had to take you into surgery immediately. Agent Zenyatta’s orbs stemmed the internal bleeding, but much of the damage was beyond repair. I replaced almost all of your intestinal tract and removed a piece of your liver that had been grazed and cauterized.”

 

He swallowed thickly.

 

Major surgery. And all without his consent or knowledge--but he could blame the doctor far less for her actions during an emergency.

 

Blame fell on others this time.

 

He simply nodded.

 

She searched his face for a moment before she pressed on, her face softening just a little now that she had broached what she likely felt was the worst news “The new intestines are ‘blank-slate’,” she said, her voice picking back up its briskness. “There was no time to grow a tailored organ. It will take another four or five days for them to mature and take on your body’s antigens so your immune system doesn’t destroy them. I must monitor you in the meantime to make sure the process is completed successfully. It will be best to feed you intravenously until they’re completely integrated, so I currently have you on an appetite suppressant--afterwards you may have liquids for a day to break them in before trying solid food. In the meantime, I will have you on bedrest--you can expect to remain here for five more days.”

 

Nod.

 

She fell silent for a few moments, still studying him. “You have just been through a traumatic event,” she said at last, gently. “And now you are in an unfamiliar environment. Is there anything--or anyone--that I can bring here that may be of some comfort to you? Or call?” she added in answer to Hanzo’s flat look. “Did Jesse--?” she asked, turning to the cowboy.

 

“Ayup,” he said simply. “I told him.”

 

“Ah,” she said with a small nod before turning back to Hanzo. “They will reach Hokkaido in about an hour, so there is time for you to speak with them if you wish.”

 

He shook his head.

 

She pressed her lips firmly together as her expression darkened a little. “Agent Shimada,” she said with a note of warning, “you must not trifle with your mental state after such a strenuous mission.”

 

Hanzo did not know if he wanted to snarl at her or laugh in her face--his _mental state_ was the least of his problems. A far bigger problem was currently being held hostage by the Ainu, but was apparently returning shortly. Another big problem was sitting in this room at this very moment.

 

So his mental state could wait.

 

“We got your stuff,” the cowboy interjected, his tone light. “Your cello case and suitcase. We can bring those up at least.”

 

The doctor watched Hanzo for a response that he now refused to give. Perhaps he was giving in to the childish urge to do and say as little as possible, but the cowboy’s helpfulness grated on his frayed nerves.

 

It was not an act.

 

It never had been.

 

The cowboy’s consideration chafed almost as badly as his derision, now that Hanzo knew it was equally authentic.

 

When it became clear that Hanzo would neither approve nor disapprove, Dr. Ziegler sighed. “I don’t want arrows in here,” she said, addressing the cowboy. “But everything else can come. Do you want to go, or should I?”

 

The cowboy seriously considered the question, surprising Hanzo--he would have thought the cowboy would seize any chance to escape his poisonous looks. Instead, he looked at Hanzo for a few moments before saying, “Can you grab everything? I, uh--I’ll sit with him.”

 

If the doctor was surprised, she did not show it. She merely nodded and said, “I’ll be back shortly, then.” She produced Hanzo’s comm out of another pocket and walked forward to place it carefully on a cabinet partially hidden by the side of the half-raised hospital bed. “You may wish to use your comm to communicate,” she suggested. “You can reach me or Athena or anyone with it. Or simply entertain yourself, of course.” With a nod at Hanzo’s unchanging visage and a quick look shot at the cowboy, she left, the door softly whooshing open and closed.

 

Hanzo stared at it for a few moments--or minutes--before he turned slowly to regard the cowboy once more.

 

He sat stiffly upright in his little chair, his comm balanced on one knee with his hands folded awkwardly in his lap, his metal fingers interlaced with his flesh fingers. He met Hanzo’s look evenly enough, though his bottom lip twitched as though he wanted to bite it.

 

Another few minutes passed by, slow as molasses.

 

The cowboy sighed, and finally broke up the strange staring contest by reaching for his comm.

 

Hanzo continued to stare at him for a while longer, but he eventually settled back into the soft mattress and pillow at the base of his neck, staring sightlessly straight ahead.

 

“You have been sincere all this time.”

 

There was no warning, even to himself. His jaw simply and abruptly loosened and the words slid off his tongue, voice rough with disuse but each syllable ringing clear in the empty silence.

 

It had not been an act.

 

But since when? What had happened, what could have possibly happened to convince the cowboy that--

 

His-- _behavior_ \--has changed radically, unexpectedly, _instantly_ after their conversation at the Niigata safehouse, but surely _that,_ at least, had been an act. There was nothing about that conversation that could possibly have convinced the cowboy to be as, as, as-- _foolish_ as nearly everyone else in Overwatch. Hanzo had _confirmed_ that the cowboy’s distrust was correct and just and appropriate and the natural end--surely it could not have backfired so spectacularly, so utterly completely and contrarily to what Hanzo had intended. Surely.

 

_Surely._

 

But when, then? When had the flip come? Had the cowboy somehow accidentally convinced himself, somehow become so caught up in his own deception that he began to think as he meant others to?

 

Or was this somehow Gen--

 

His jaw tightened again.

 

Perhaps he simply did not have the capacity for that right now.

 

Perhaps he should focus on the cowboy’s non-existent perfidy.

 

It was certainly mind-boggling enough on its own. Everything, _everything_ he had assumed was happening for a full six weeks had to be reexamined, everything from that conversation under the cedars onwards--and possibly even before. Perhaps Agent Soldier: 76’s lecture had something to do with it, or perhaps Winston had _also_ lectured the cowboy at some point--he had certainly seemed cowed by Winston’s reminder of his actions when Winston had claimed ultimate responsibility.

 

Or perhaps Gen--

 

Perhaps it was the Omnic monk. Perhaps _he_ had somehow wormed his way into the cowboy’s heart and mind as he had done before. Perhaps he had managed to plant some foolhardy notion of _forg--_

 

But surely, surely, surely nothing could have toppled the immense anger and hatred that Hanzo had witnessed firsthand that first night when Overwatch had hunted Hanzo down. It was obviously still there--the cowboy had even unleashed it when--

 

The recollection of the identity of the Reaper--of Gabriel Reyes--made Hanzo’s thoughts stop short for a moment and glance at the cowboy.

 

He was looking at Hanzo again, expression flat, eyes wary.

 

Eyes that Hanzo only now noticed were set above deep, dark circles, almost purple under his brown skin.

 

And he only now noticed the sick, irritating smell of tobacco in the room--not enough for the cowboy to have been smoking at the side of a hospital bed, but apparently the habit had made some kind of comeback. The cowboy had not smelled of tobacco smoke since India.

 

The scraggly facial hair, the unkempt goatee, and thick stubble were also back, at odds with the neater style that the cowboy had cultivated between Niigata and India.

 

Oh, yes. The cowboy was clearly quite capable of being affected by gross betrayal.

 

Yet here he was, at the bedside of a-- _former_ \--target of the same rage that had nearly carried him away into death.

 

_Why._

 

“Yeah.” The word was simple, _too_ simple for what it confirmed, but it was all the cowboy offered into the interminable silence left by Hanzo.

 

Hanzo struggled against two forces, one seeking to demand, to _command_ the cowboy to explain himself, the other wishing for nothing more than for him to be gone and take his inexplicable actions with him and never return to trouble Hanzo again.

 

Everything would be so much simpler if the cowboy had kept to his role as the lone sane man in Overwatch. Even now Hanzo would love nothing more than any indication, any hint whatsoever that it was all part of the deception, all part of the plan--

 

\--but nothing would make the cowboy put Genji in any danger he deemed unnecessary. Hanzo was absolutely certain of that.

 

He could easily believe that he might unwittingly put him in danger as he had his comrades in Niigata, but even that colossal error had come from a place of protection, a dogged determination to keep the viper in Overwatch’s bosom at bay as best he could.

 

Nothing less than severe blood loss led to Hanzo’s wild accusation that the cowboy was drawing Genji into the middle of an Omnic battalion for mere plausibility--he had been casting about, desperate for _any_ explanation, likely or impossible.

 

But--

 

“I do not understand,” he said quietly, almost hissing the words, “why you would be so foolish.”

 

The cowboy smiled.

 

And it did not falter in the slightest at Hanzo’s aggravated growl.

 

“Sorry,” said the cowboy, shaking his head slightly--and the tightness in his voice helped clue Hanzo in to the tightness of the smile. “It’s just--aw, hell.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his face in his cupped hands.

 

Was he weeping? thought Hanzo with a brief flare of panic. But the cowboy looked up again, and the smile was still there, still tight. If he had been on the cusp of weeping, he had pulled himself together.

 

“Beggin’ your pardon, but I just got broadsided by _déjà vu._ Y’see, I asked that same question twenty-and-a-half years ago.” He paused, and his smile became lopsided. “I was in the hospital bed--handcuffed t’the railing, though, so that’s different--” he said with a dry chuckle, “and sittin’ in a chair like this one here was Gabriel Reyes.”

 

Hanzo’s eye twitched, but the cowboy probably missed it--his gaze fell to the floor between them upon pronouncing the name.

 

“I wasn’ near as concise neither,” he said retrospectively. “Lot more cursin’, for one.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips as the cowboy’s face slackened as he lost himself to reminiscence. Impatience itched under his skin and tingled in his fingertips--if he thought he had any chance of success, he would have brushed aside the cowboy’s tangent and forcibly returned them to the business at hand, but it was obvious the cowboy was in a fey mood. If his outburst during his fistfight with Gabriel Reyes--or the fistfight itself--was any indication, he had harbored some rather intense hopes about the events in Zürich.

 

Was that why Overwatch as a whole had been so cavalier about Reyes’ legacy? he wondered suddenly.

 

_I thought you were framed!_

 

Had the cowboy--and others in Overwatch--bought into a theory that the savior of humanity could not possibly have turned traitor and assassinated so many of his comrades and compatriots?

 

Well. That theory had obviously not borne out.

 

“So. I guess you could say you got about twenty years--well, maybe fif--ten--of good work ahead of you,” the cowboy suddenly said, his head snapping up with a twisted smile and a bitter, bitter tone. “Meanwhile, I got an explanation for why I was such an ass. Gabe taught me most of what I know. Just goes t’show that dogs take after their owners, right?”

 

Hanzo leveled a cool, unimpressed look at him.

 

The cowboy seemed to expect it. His smile twisted even further until it was almost a sneer. “So I don’ blame ya for not believin’ that I was on the up-and-up. You really can’ trust a lowlife like me, ‘specially when it turns out his mentor managed t’pull the wool over the whole world’s eyes before stabbin’ ‘em all in the back. Can’ expect you t’not think the same of me.”

 

“You may dispense with your sadsack bullshit at any time.”

 

Hanzo had had quite enough--he wanted answers, not ramblings that had zero basis in reality.

 

He had the immediate pleasure of seeing the cowboy’s eyes widen in shock.

 

Good. He had his attention.

 

“Tell me, cowboy,” said Hanzo, shuffling in the bed so he could sit upright and stare down at the cowboy still slouched over his knees. “Who was Gabriel Reyes protecting, five years ago or just now? If I recall correctly, no one in his little mutiny made it out of Zürich--though I suppose that does not count for much, since _he_ was not supposed to get out either. But I remember that day. I saw plenty of videos and photos of bodies in black alongside those in blue. I did not care for the distinction back then, but they were Blackwatch, were they not? He led them to their deaths, and now you know that it was not for _their_ good.”

 

The cowboy’s eyes closed for a moment, so Hanzo waited for them to open and refocus before he continued--he was not feeling merciful today.

 

“And you saw how much he cared for his Talon cronies. He did not play his winning hand until it was _his_ neck on the chopping block, not theirs, and then he left _you_ to die. He obviously cares for no one’s life beyond his own.

 

“But _you?”_

 

There was a metal side rail on the hospital bed, and Hanzo took a wild guess on how to lower it, seizing it and jerking it up and to one side then the other, and to his eminent satisfaction it gave and fell away on its hinges, smacking loudly into the support rods underneath, and he swung his stubs over the edge of the bed to face the cowboy head-on, ignoring the pull of the sensors on his skin.

 

 _“You--”_ he growled, thrusting a pointed finger at the cowboy’s face, “--care about your team to a fault! _You_ run _in_ to protect them, you hiss and spit venom at anyone the least bit likely to menace them! You nearly shot me for saying I would harm Genji again! Does that sound like Gabriel Reyes to you?” he demanded with a sneer. “So don’t you _dare_ pin your actions on such an _absurd_ source!” He stared imperiously down at the wide dark eyes above the slack jaw. “What I want to know,” he thundered, “is _why_ you would risk your life--”

 

He almost added “and Genji’s”, but he was too shamefully weak to confront Genji’s actions in his thoughts at that moment, on why he had chosen to come. The knowledge of that made him flush and his voice started to rise out of the combination of frustration at himself _and_ the cowboy.

 

“--for that selfsame menace! Allowing a proven danger into your midst is the _last_ thing Overwatch should do, _and you were the only one who knew that!”_ He was shouting now, and he did not care. His jaw and throat ached from the diametrically opposed efforts of keeping silent and making himself heard to the heavens, and spots threatened to appear in his vision, but he refused to let up.

 

“Explain yourself!” he barked, just short of bellowed, really, finally choosing which urge to satisfy.

 

Silence fell like the echoes of a landslide fading away. Hanzo glared at the cowboy with venom in his gaze, willing him to be paralyzed until he gave a satisfactory account of his behavior--which would never happen, because every explanation was bound to be unsatisfactory.

 

But to his chagrin, the cowboy was far from paralyzed. He kept Hanzo’s gaze as he slowly sat up, and he did not seem cowed or repentant or even intimidated. Instead, he drew in a deep breath, visibly gathered himself together, and reached for the breast pocket on his red-and-yellow plaid shirt.

 

Hanzo narrowed his eyes when he pulled out a photo and a shotgun cartridge.

 

The cowboy finally broke his eyes away from Hanzo’s to look down at the photo for a few moments, swallowing at whatever he saw there, but he put it back almost immediately. It was the cartridge that he held up for Hanzo to see.

 

“This here had my name on it twenty years ago,” he said quietly.

 

He paused as though he could not help himself, twisting the cartridge between his thumb and forefinger for a moment.

 

“I’d been with Deadlock since I was eleven, just like you said,” he finally said, his voice hushed. “I’d just ‘worked’ my way from lookout and guard dog to enforcement. Hadn’ gone on any raids yet, but that was my goal,” he said with another dry, humorless chuckle. “I wanted in on the fightin’, any chance I could get.

 

“And I got it--Blackwatch came a-callin’ the day after they brought me out to our main base.”

 

He broke off again for a moment, shaking his head ruefully. “I was scared shitless,” he murmured. “Luckily. Still got chest shots, but I missed their hearts by a mile. If I’d done any better, I wouldn’ be here today, probably. Gabe--Gabri--Reyes wouldn’ta been able t’make his offer, or I’da been shot my first day in Blackwatch. Or something.”

 

Hanzo snorted--as though that would have been allowed in Overwatch.

 

The cowboy focused on his face and jut his chin out. “You think they wouldn’ have?” he asked with an edge to his voice. “You say Overwatch ‘rescued’ me, but there were plenty of people in Blackwatch who woulda been just fine with offin’ me if I so much as looked at ‘em wrong--didn’ matter that I was seventeen.”

 

Hanzo narrowed his eyes. The cowboy’s personnel file said--

 

“Gabe fibbed a little on my papers,” said the cowboy, answering the unspoken question with that twisted smile returning. “Was a bit of a gamble. If I were a kid, the Feds woulda tried that much harder t’take me, but if I were an adult, I could take the deal Gabe gave me. So he took the less-than-legal route, and if that weren’ a sign of things t’come--”  He shook his head again with a sigh, but he continued. “And there were plenty of others who took a similar deal. None from Deadlock, thank _fuck,_ but as far as I know they were all adults--and they needed more lookin’ after than even I did, and for a lot longer--but not enough.

 

“Some of ‘em crossed the line again.”

 

Now the smile was bordering on a sneer once again. “Like Ryan Coolidge, that poor bastard you pinned to the wall by his neck. Better than he deserved, t’be honest. Or Patricia Randolph, that Zenyatta got. She was a piece of work, too, but out of the two of ‘em I’m glad you were the one t’get Coolidge.”

 

Hanzo stared at the cowboy, momentarily thrown by the revelation, his eyebrows knitted together.

 

The cowboy nodded, his own eyebrows drawn down in anger. “Ayup. Only a question of when, of course--and whether some of ‘em came from Talon in the first place. Overwatch as a whole was infiltrated long before the Fall--that’s one reason Blackwatch got exposed t’the public. Gabe was workin’ on that, but he got hamstrung by J--by,” he stumbled a little over his words, trying to recover. “By, uh, higher-ups.” Then he really did sneer, but it was a paper-thin thing, overlaying the cowboy’s true emotions. _“If_ he was gettin’ hamstrung, that is. But who knows now?

 

“But I believed him. God, how could I not believe him?”

 

And his gaze fell from Hanzo back to the shotgun cartridge, held between thumb and forefinger.

 

“And I believed--”

 

The cowboy fell silent for a long time.

 

“And I believed him when he said he gave me a chance despite everything.”

 

Another long pause, long enough and quiet enough for Hanzo to hear the cowboy’s breathing.

 

“So there you are,” he said at last, his voice tart. “That was what I was tryin’ to emulate. Give you a chance despite everything. I’d already fucked it up, o’course, because it took you and Genji and Winston and even fuckin’ _Jack_ layin’ everything out before I could, but at the end of the day, that was the little bit of hypocrisy that got me the most. I got a chance despite everything, but I couldn’ do the same.

 

“Guess I know why, now.”

 

His tone was becoming bitter again.

 

“He wasn’ interested in rehabilitatin’ some prick he picked off the streets,” he ground out, still staring at the cartridge, his fingertips whitening as his grip on it tightened. “He just saw an opportunity t’get another gun in his corner.”

 

“And he obviously failed.”

 

The cowboy’s head popped back up. Hanzo looked imperious down at him.

 

“Despite his best efforts, you fixated on his mercy rather than his ambition. Very well; that helps to explain.” And it did. If the cowboy was emulating such a powerful act, however correctly or incorrectly he had interpreted the intent, then even Hanzo could begin to wrap his head around it--he could understand perfectly how Genji must have gone about shaming him into falling in line with his desires. Even his assertion that he had expected the cowboy to “treat him fairly” finally had an explanation.

 

But merely sparing his life was worlds away from the cowboy had ultimately done.

 

“But he also taught you--or you already possessed--adequate judgement and self-preservation instincts. Why did you abandon both?” he asked harshly. “Why did you not leave me to die?”

 

“Why didn’ _you?”_ the cowboy shot back. He palmed the cartridge in his hand and sat up straight, shelving his turmoil as swiftly as he reloaded his revolver. “Outta the two of us, I think _you’re_ the one abandonin’ good sense when it comes t’what happened out there. You know I’ve been tryin’ since Niigata, so it should follow that _my_ actions are clear enough. What about _you?_ You thought I was gonna kill you at the first opportunity, but then you leap in front of me and a squad of stampedin’ Omnics _after_ I tell ya t’scamper! So how’s about _you_ explain yourself, huh? What was _that_ about?”

 

Hanzo set aside the flicker of surprise that had skitted across his face when the tables turned on him. “What of it?” he said coldly. “You are Overwatch, and I have sworn myself to its service.”

 

“Simple as that, huh.”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Yet you won’ accept that same argument.”

 

“Because it does not apply to me!” exploded Hanzo, just about ready to shuffle legless across the room to strangle the cowboy with his bare hands. “I am not a member of Overwatch!”

 

The cowboy snorted. “Right, you’re just here because of Genji.”

 

“Correct!”

 

“So you saved my life because of Genji.”

 

“Yes!”

 

“Then can I say I saved your life because of Genji, too, or does that not apply t’you either?”

 

“He did not concern you before.”

 

The cowboy flinched, and Hanzo allowed a small smile at the precision hit--but it was wiped away soon enough.

 

“That’s right,” the cowboy admitted after he swallowed heavily to gather himself. “That’s a hundred percent right--so I guess you convinced me you’re worth savin’ in other ways.”

 

“What could possibly have convinced you after what I did to Genji?” jeered Hanzo. “After _everything_ I’ve done, before and after?”

 

“Dunno much about before,” said the cowboy, shrugging a little. Hanzo scowled at the casual gesture. “But I got a _before,_ too, so let’s leave both of ‘em by the wayside for now and focus on the after. I admit, I wasn’ much willing t’know much about it. Genji tried t’tell me, but I didn’ listen. Something about goin’ home and fightin’ your way past a few guards t’light some incense once a year--all I took from that is that you were annually sorry. And, speakin’ completely honestly, it didn’ help when I asked ya directly, y’know.”

 

The last sentence was delivered with no small amount of resentment, and Hanzo raised his chin defiantly to meet it. “Should I have lied, cowboy? Did you not want the truth?”

 

“I got _half_ the truth,” the cowboy shot back. “Just a simple ‘yes’ instead of a ‘if I were ordered to-- _again.’_ You’re _damn_ lucky Genji was there t’know what you wanted t’say! Or _not_ say, since you love doin’ that sort of thing, dontcha? Lucky you had Genji _and_ me in India! Otherwise you’da been left behind _or_ lost us two or three members when we can’ afford t’lose a goddamned _sock_ or both!”

 

 _Ah,_ thought Hanzo with a small nod of understanding. That also helped explain it.

 

But the cowboy caught the small motion. “Don’ you dare!” he barked, and now _he_ thrust an accusatory finger at Hanzo. “Don’ you dare boil it down to a simple question of numbers and resources! It’s more than that! You’re a damned good fighter, but it’s more than that! _You’re_ more than that, just like _I’m_ more than a good shot!”

 

“Another one of Reyes’ lines?” asked Hanzo sardonically.

 

“Ana Amari, actually,” the cowboy growled. “You think Reyes taught me sharpshooting with a _shotgun?_ It’s thanks t’her I almost got Widowmaker. I don’ owe him--”

 

He froze in mid-sentence with the abruptness of a semi slamming into a concrete bunker.

 

He looked--surprised. Almost shocked.

 

“--I don’ owe him everything,” he finished after a few moments’ silence, softly, almost contemplatively, his eyes unfocusing a little bit. Then he blinked, physically shook himself, and, with a stronger voice and sharper eyes, “So don’ think you can just dismiss everything I say with a ‘oh, well, Reyes.’ I’m more than that.”

 

“But I am not,” said Hanzo, and he was alarmed with a tired, weary note somehow crawled into his voice. He tried to cover it as best he could. “I am nothing more than a kinslayer, nothing less than a monster. There is nothing else to be gained.”

 

“Nothing except my life,” said the cowboy solemnly.

 

The sheer sincerity in his voice robbed Hanzo of all his words.

 

“Nothing except keepin’ an Omnium deactivated. So that’s, what, at least a few thousand lives?” he continued, staring earnestly straight into Hanzo’s eyes. “Nothing except a contact with one of Vishkar’s top architechs, openin’ up opportunities and possibilities we never dreamed of havin’ so soon. Nothing except a shitload of equipment that we can put t’good use. Nothing except a good fighter whose _skills_ we can put t’good use.”

 

The cowboy hesitated for a bare moment.

 

“Nothing except a chance at redemption. _Real_ redemption.”

 

Hanzo’s jaw clenched tight, cutting off any chance at recovering his voice.

 

“You know now, right?” asked the cowboy, lowering his voice but speaking urgently. “I’m not the only one you were wrong about. Genji ain’ gonna kill you. He ain’ _ever_ gonna kill you. If I managed t’convince you with my little stunt, then his has gotta do the same, right?

 

“Now you gotta figure out your redemption-- _real_ redemption--through livin’ rather than dyin’.”

 

Hanzo tore his teeth apart. “Get out.”

 

He meant the two words to be venomous and spitting, but they came out tired and petulant instead.

 

He tried again. “Get out,” he repeated, and though the tone was stronger, the weariness had not left his voice, and he was powerless to suppress or push it aside. He tried to make up for it with a hard stare, but he could not help but feel the fragility of his expression, how it might be brushed aside by the slightest word to reveal the maelstrom underneath the cowboy had provoked.

 

The cowboy sat in his chair for a few moments before he pushed himself up to his feet with a slight groan. “Bathroom’s through there,” he said, sounding exhausted, nodding to the side of the hospital bed. “Your legs are under the bed. If you’re too wobbly on your feet, Athena can get you some help--you don’ need your comm, she’s got her voice interface in the entire base.” He fixed Hanzo with a serious look. “You need anything--anything at all--give _any_ of us a call. I don’ care who, just call someone.”

 

Hanzo did not reply verbally. He only glared up at him.

 

The cowboy allowed himself a sigh before he turned and walked slowly to the door.

 

Before he left, however, he called one last parting shot over his shoulder.

 

“Thank ya, Agent Shimada. For stickin’ around. I don’ much care about the why, only that you did. Those dragons of yours surely were lights in a dark place.”

 

And the door whooshed softly closed behind him.

 

After staring in near-incomprehension at the door, Hanzo slowly swung his stubs back onto the bed. He leaned back against the half-inclined hospital bed and stared up at the grey metal of the ceiling, trying to empty his mind of the thoughts that felt far too big to be contained in his head, but it was a futile effort.

 

Genji.

 

He supposed he would eventually have to face the worldshattering change in circumstances sooner or later, but he still felt woefully unequal to even think of his brother or his--deeds.

 

Or the consequences.

 

The long-term consequences.

 

They--existed--now.

 

And he could not bear to think through a single one.

 

It was not supposed to be this way.

 

Fuck.

 

Hanzo was lost in the whirlwind of his mind for some time, with snatches of coherent thought whipping past his mind’s eye for mere instants before being swept away--the impossibility of it all, bitter recrimination against the Omnic monk for orchestrating it, a terrible, dark longing for Genji’s forg--Genji’s--for Genji to even now be overcome by a sudden--and increasingly unlikely--burst of righteous anger that would cut down Hanzo as he should be.

 

But--

 

_You are right._

 

_You were cruel._

 

_I have not forgotten._

 

**_I have not forgotten._ **

 

_I will never forget that._

 

_Truth is in one's actions._

 

_Believe what I say and do:_

 

_You are forgi--_

 

Impossible. Impossible, impossible, impossible.

 

_Truth is in one's actions._

 

And Genji came to him through the deadliest battlefield outside Siberia, and pressed his forehead to his, and lifted him up, and bodily carried him, and--

 

_Truth is in one's actions._

 

Hanzo had seen the truth clearly below the cherry blossoms and had no trouble believing it then.

 

But now?

 

Now--

 

“Agent Shimada, Dr. Ziegler has returned.”

 

Hanzo did not respond to Athena’s announcement at first--it was taking a truly terrifying amount of time to order his thoughts and prepare to face another human being.

 

“Agent Shimada? Are you all right?”

 

“Yes,” he finally managed to reply, not knowing whether he was relieved or angry that his jaw was loose enough for speech. “Yes, I am fine. She may enter.”

 

The door slid open to reveal Dr. Ziegler weighed down with Hanzo’s cello case slung over one shoulder and his metallic suitcase in one hand. Her small frame really did look overloaded, and even in his current state Hanzo sat up and frowned in dismay--she was the last person who should be hefting his possessions around like a carthorse.

 

But at least she did not move as though she was overencumbered--she entered and set down the suitcase and leaned the cello case against the wall at the foot of the bed with no more effort than he would have, but he still had no business obligating her to do such a thing--and for _him_ of all people.

 

“My apologies, Dr. Ziegler,” he said after a hard swallow and clearing his throat to help simulate an acceptable tone. “I--”

 

“When you’re back on your feet, there will be ample opportunity to return the favor, Agent Shimada. We’re extremely shortstaffed,” interrupted the doctor with a small smile as she walked to Hanzo’s bedside. She glanced at the lowered side rail with a slightly raised eyebrow, but her main purpose was to check an array of small machines attached to the various tubes going into Hanzo’s IV. She nodded to herself as she studied the various lines, graphs, and numbers on the screens before she spoke again. “You have had a catheter for the last three days, but I removed it when I took you off the anesthesia a few hours ago. Do you need to use the restroom?”

 

Hanzo felt a little bit of heat in his cheeks and fought to keep it under control while trying to match the doctor’s clinical tone. “No, Dr. Ziegler.”

 

“When you do,” she said, “you can detach yourself from the IV like so.” She showed him a little button on the side of the contraption that connected the IV needle to the various tubes and how to press it without jostling the needle too much. The tubes popped off, still joined together by a bottle cap-like apparatus--and to his surprise, she immediately fully bent his arm at the elbow. “Once it’s detached you can move your arm more or less normally,” she explained as she moved his forearm back and forth like a hinge. “The needle is made from a new alloy that is solid when exposed to air but becomes flexible in liquid with a certain temperature and pH range. Still, try not to jostle it too much--you may tear the skin at the insertion point.” She then reattached it to the tubes, again demonstrating how to do so with as little pain as possible. “Do not detach it unless you are in the bathroom or showering,” she ordered with a little bit of steel in her gaze.

 

At the word _shower,_ Hanzo was instantly aware of the greasy feeling in his skin, hair, and beard--it almost felt like he had been dipped in oil despite it supposedly being only three days. His vanity was still strong enough for him to flush at how he must look at the moment--how he had looked while arguing with the cowboy, his face shiny, his hair completely slick, and his entire body almost dripping.

 

“Now, let me just give you a quick examination with the sensors still attached--then we can switch to the remote sensors so you can move about more easily.”

 

Hanzo submitted without comment, if only because the discomfort of an exam was a welcome distraction from the swirling mess of his mind. Dr. Ziegler was indeed quick but thorough, shining a light in his eyes and looking at his throat and testing his reflexes and listening to his chest and back with a stethoscope among other things. It almost felt pediatric--Hanzo had not been examined like this since leaving Dr. Sawaguchi’s care, and before then by no one but old Dr. Sugawara, the clan’s private physician for the kumichō and immediate family.

 

In either case, it had been years and years.

 

Dr. Ziegler finished by reattaching and testing his legs--they were, as the cowboy said, stowed under the bed. Hanzo felt exposed wearing only a pair of loose boxer-like shorts to preserve his modesty in front of the doctor--and he tried not to think of who might have undressed him, the thought thoroughly unpleasant and embarrassing.

 

“You may keep them on, but only after you have showered,” the doctor said as she watched him flex his artificial toes. “Otherwise they may chafe. Would you like to try a shower now?”

 

Hanzo did not like the emphasis on the word _try,_ especially if it meant that the doctor thought assistance would be necessary, but he doubted she would do anything as unprofessional as allow him to attempt walking by himself after life-threatening neurotoxicity, major surgery, and three days of unconsciousness.

 

The only recourse was to prove as soon as possible that her aid was unnecessary. He swung his legs to the floor, braced himself for a struggle of some kind, and pushed himself to his feet.

 

He blinked in surprise--he felt--

 

\--normal.

 

“Good, your nervous system responded well to the treatment,” hummed Dr. Ziegler, and he could see her switching her attention between himself and the monitors. “The neurotoxin did not match any on record, but it was similar to many delayed-action toxins that have been developed by underground laboratories for various nefarious purposes--but they can all be somewhat unpredictable.” She made another note on her tablet before she touched Hanzo’s shoulder. “Follow me.”

 

The feeling of fingers grazing across the rough scarring of the brand were nearly as jarring as an electric shock.

 

He tried to bear it as he would any such sudden jolt, but it was impossible to disguise the jerk and tension of his muscles.

 

The doctor, to her credit, quickly withdrew her hand without snatching it away. “Agent Shimada?” she asked, voice carefully controlled.

 

Hanzo fought to keep from trying to hide the two circling dragons burned into his skin, either by cupping a hand over his shoulder or turning away or even draping a sheet over his shoulders as he was sorely tempted to do.

 

The damage was done. She had seen.

 

The _cowboy_ had seen.

 

So many others had potentially seen.

 

Another tremor ran through him.

 

“Agent Shimada?”

 

“Y--” managed Hanzo, but his jaw was trying to clench again. He suppressed what would have been a feral, frustrated growl low in his throat--it could have meant anything to the doctor, and he was not at all sure he would be able to explain himself if she interpreted it badly.

 

“Let’s sit back down, Agent Shimada,” Dr. Ziegler suggested, her voice low and soothing.

 

“No!”

 

Even Hanzo was startled by the word. He froze, aghast at his own volume--he almost clapped a hand over his mouth before he stopped himself. He might not have been able to do it, honestly--his arms were stiff at his sides.

 

“No,” he tried again, softer. “No, I--I wish to--”

 

He should not be inconveniencing the doctor with his wishes.

 

He should not be here at all.

 

He should be--

 

“Agent Shimada.”

 

Dr. Ziegler was in front of him, searching his eyes, her hands raised in front of her chest but not touching him. “Shimada Hanzo, focus on me. Focus on my voice. You are in Watchpoint: Gibraltar. I am Dr. Angela Ziegler. Can you understand me?”

 

She was speaking Japanese--the heavily accented novelty of it drew him back to reality more than anything else.

 

“Yes,” he answered in English, still gripped by the notion that she should not be exerting herself on his behalf. “Yes, I understand.”

 

She was looking intently into his eyes, her own narrowed almost to slits. “What do you need?” she asked.

 

He needed her to _stop._ He needed them all to stop, to just _stop_ and go away and leave him to shift about for himself, as he had always done.

 

But that was not an option, was it? And even if it were, he could recognize the petulant, juvenile nature of his desire, even if it did not lessen it in the slightest.

 

Really, the only option he would have liked was a bottle of baijiu or vodka or even sake or beer, if there was enough of it--but who knew when that could happen. Not in less than five days if Dr. Ziegler had anything to say about it, he was certain, especially if the precipitating event was something as small as someone unexpectedly touching the brand on his shoulder.

 

He sunk mental claws into his thoughts and dragged them back into order, back into something resembling coherency.

 

He had no other choice but to be coherent.

 

He swallowed despite his bone-dry mouth and quietly said, “My apologies, Dr. Ziegler. We may continue.”

 

She searched his face, obviously wavering, so after a few moments he sidestepped her and headed for the door to the bathroom. At this point, anything but continuing to stare into her grey eyes was preferable.

 

The bathroom was a bigger room than he expected, but then again, it was probably meant to accommodate patients with any number of needs and physical sizes, if Winston or even the giant Agent Reinhardt from the Niigata raid were any indication. He was not expecting the complicated mechanical contraption next to the seethrough glass shower stall, however, and in his state he physically stopped and almost reeled back from the sight.

 

If Dr. Ziegler saw that, however, she did not comment on it. “This is an automatic shower assistant,” she explained after she slowly came into view at his side, obviously wary of surprising him in any way, shape, or form. “It’s meant to be used by patients with limited mobility. You may find it useful if you find the IV needle is moving too much. Even if you do not use it, however, I do recommend using this.” She leaned over and touched a small plastic chair with handrails set up in the shower stall. The showerhead was mounted on a vertical bar so it could be adjusted from a height of anywhere from about fifty to about two hundred and fifty centimeters, so it would be well within arm’s-reach.

 

Hanzo nodded, relieved--he felt it would be easier to convince Dr. Ziegler to leave if he promised to sit rather than stand.

 

But she did not seem to need to be convinced. She apparently expected not to be allowed to assist as she slowly moved to the door after pointing out the bottles of generic soap, shampoo, and conditioner on a low rounded shelf in the stall and light blue scrubs, a shirt and loose slacks, hanging off a hook next to the sink and toilet. But she did fix him with another no-nonsense look as she said, “If you need help, you may either activate the shower assistant, tell Athena, or simply call--I will be in the room until you are finished.”

 

He tried not to grimace at the thought of her hovering--but he could hardly demand that she not. He was damned lucky she was giving him the opportunity of any privacy at all, given the state he was in.

 

He merely nodded and stood awkwardly off to one side as she gave him one last lookover. She was obviously fighting to keep her face from falling into a worried frown before she clicked the door closed behind her.

 

Alone at last, he felt a wave of emotion, relief mixed with a strange fear mixed with howling frustration mixed with others that were too muddled and transient to name. He was almost paralyzed by them, but he was able to jerkily thrust down his shorts and pad into the shower. He was, however, almost distracted enough to forget to take his legs off after he sat in the low chair--the water would not have harmed them in the least, but it would have felt like a failure not to remember to wash his stubs.

 

Turning the dial produced a shock of cold water, but the physical sensation on his head and shoulders was welcome to help wash away the tingle of the doctor’s fingers over the brand.

 

It was hard to quell the rising frustration at his reaction--it was not merited by the situation. The brand was--“personal” was probably the best word, but it was not--it was not--it was the last thing he wanted people to see, given what it symbolized, but there was no one here who _knew_ what it--

 

Unless Genji saw it.

 

He would know.

 

A violent shiver wracked his body. The water pouring over him was icy, and it was a world apart from the baths he had taken with a washrag, even if the water temperature was likely higher. He swatted at the dial with clumsy fingers, but it took the stream at least a couple of minutes to respond, going from freezing to lukewarm in an instant but no warmer--but Hanzo was not interested in a hot shower. Lukewarm was quite enough, and far more than he would have expected to get. He had expected to be in the homeste--

 

He pumped a couple of globs of shampoo into his left hand and began to determinedly work it into his scalp, trying to lose himself in the motions.

 

It worked a little bit--he was not insensible of how good to felt to get clean, truly clean under a jet of water rather than a washcloth, especially since he only became more aware of how filthy he felt. He was sure he could feel grit and debris in his hair and smell whiffs of explosives and concrete from the mission, and even if that were imaginary, the oil and grease in his hair and on his skin certainly was not. The shampoo and liquid soap refused to lather at first. Disgusting.

 

He made a mental note to ask the doctor or Athena where he could obtain new sheets for the bed--he would not go back to the old, dirty sheets if he did not absolutely have to.

 

But despite his efforts to concentrate on cleansing himself, his thoughts slowly crept back into the forefront of his mind, but at least he did not find himself staring at the white plastic siding of the stall until after he had conditioned his hair and scrubbed the last of the grease off the ends of his legs. It was another shiver that alerted him that he had become lost in himself again--there was evidently a limit to the lukewarm water.

 

He rinsed himself off, paying special attention to his scalp and between his legs and buttocks--he did not want a single grain of grit to accompany him back out of the shower.

 

He paused.

 

It surely had been a long time, he thought sourly as he stared at his strengthening erection, if despite everything his body was making certain demands in response to a simple shower. Time alone was probably the best explanation, but given the stress he was under it was also likely his body was craving a release of some kind--any release.

 

It would not receive one while the doctor was waiting right outside, however.

 

And the irrational suspicion that she might suspect that he was taking so long because he _was_ indulging made him hurry to finish up, dry off, and reattach his legs far more than the cold water did.

 

He did pause again at the sight of an unopened tube of toothpaste and a packaged toothbrush waiting on the small shelf above the low sink to the side of a toilet equipped with handrails and a footstool. Despite his fear of her suspicion, he feared the effects of his breath more--especially if he suffered another slack-jawed episode that surely pumped more and more of three days’ worth of odor into the room with each breath.

 

Disgusting.

 

Finally clean inside and out, he dressed in the soft scrubs, took deep breaths to center and prepare himself mentally and physically to behave more or less like a human, and opened the door.

 

The doctor straightened and turned from the hospital bed. “Ah, excellent timing, Agent Shimada,” she said with a slight smile. “Jesse just brought by the clean sheets. I’m sorry to say I didn’t think of changing them until fifteen minutes ago.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. How long had he been showering? He would have guessed fifteen minutes total--his sense of time was disturbingly inaccurate.

 

“Thank you, Dr. Ziegler,” he said quietly. “I apologize for obligating you to perform so many menial tasks on my behalf.”

 

“Don’t mention it, Agent Shimada,” she replied--more forcefully than he expected. In spite of that, her smile grew more genuine. “It’s been something of a wake-up call--I’ve discovered how much I take for granted. Even in war zones I tend to be able to leave such things to nurses or janitors or even the family members of the patients. In any event,” she said, her tone becoming more businesslike, “How are you feeling? Are you fatigued at all?”

 

“No,” he said shortly, standing awkwardly just outside the bathroom door as she came forward, looking closely at his face. “I feel--normal.”

 

“Good,” she said, albeit a little musingly. She took the opportunity to listen to his chest and back and shone the flashlight in his eyes one more time before she gestured to the bed. He climbed in with more than a little foreboding. Getting up and moving about had had--mixed results--but it felt like slowing to a stop would allow his thoughts to catch up with him more than they were already.

 

He reattached the IV lines to the needle in his arm under Dr. Ziegler’s watch. The connector hissed a little as he clicked it into place, and he could feel a slight chill run up his arm when the liquids began to enter his vein again. Dr. Ziegler nodded in satisfaction and then, with a slight intake of breath that sounded ominously preparatory, said, “We--that is, Hana and I--would like to show you something that may, ah--may help you be more comfortable. And pass the time.”

 

Hanzo looked at her, hardly able to keep his eyebrows from knitting together in suspicion. “What?”

 

“Hana brought along one of the feral cats living near your base,” she explained, with an apprehensive yet hopeful expression that revealed quite plainly that she had no idea whether he would receive the news glady or badly.

 

Hanzo felt broadsided.

 

“Apparently the cat had a litter fairly recently, and Mei was forecasting early winter weather that they’d be unlikely to survive, so Hana and Zenyatta retrieved them all the night before the mission. The cat is--I believe her name is Sakura?” the doctor asked, looking at him with slightly narrowed eyes.

 

“Yes,” he managed to say, rather feebly. “Yes, Sakura. She is--she is here?”

 

His response did not relieve the doctor’s apprehension, but she did smile a little bit. “Yes, she is. Hana has her and her kittens right outside the door if you’d like to see them.”

 

“I--”

 

Hanzo could not help looking at the door, but it did not slide open instantly. He was almost glad. This somehow felt more unexpected than anything else that had happened, and until that moment he had never known before in his life that surprise could be so powerful an emotion without being accompanied by dismay or fear or disappointment or a kneejerk reaction of some kind. He--had simply never expected anything like this to happen.

 

Perhaps he should have, somehow, but--he simply had not.

 

“I--is--are animals allowed?” he asked, more to break his stunned silence than anything else, and somehow his brain landed on that particular sentence out of all possible statements.

 

The doctor’s smile cautiously widened. “In the old days we had therapy animals,” she said lightly, “but Hana is prepared to move Sakura and her family in here during your stay. That will certainly be a first for an Overwatch medical facility.”

 

“Move them in?” asked Hanzo dumbly.

 

“If you like,” said the doctor, her smile waning a little bit. “Zenyatta’s orbs calmed her down while they captured her and the kittens, but she’s still quite feral. Jesse says that she’s fond of you, however, so Hana thinks she’ll be happier here than in the supply closet she was keeping them in.”

 

“Yes, that is likely,” said Hanzo distractedly, still trying to process his astonishment. “But she--they--”

 

“So long as you keep the kittens away from the IV line, everything should be fine,” said the doctor. “That was another reason to switch to the remote sensors--I didn’t want them chewing on the EKG cables. Do you--object?”

 

No. No, he did not, to be completely honest, but--his astonishment was still enough to keep him asking _how_ and _why_ even though the doctor had answered both questions already, and he was struggling not to let it overpower him.

 

But he finally managed to shake his head. “No,” he said. “They--they may enter.”

 

The doctor nodded, though she still looked uncertain, before she called out, “Alright, Athena, let them in.”

 

Hanzo remembered to brace himself to face Agent D.Va just in time.

 

“Sup, cowboy?” she asked as she--as she _backed_ into the room, not bothering to look behind her. She had an enormous bulging backpack slung on her back, and in her arms--

 

Ah. So that was where the laundry tub had gone.

 

It was almost too big for her to carry, but much like the doctor she seemed to be muscling it where she wanted without too much trouble.

 

Hanzo watched the scene bemusedly--seeing the laundry tub was provoking an embarrassing mix of positive and negative emotion. A tub should be not greeted as an old familiar friend being manhandled by too-rough hands.

 

_“Mrowl?!”_

 

Sakura’s head popped up above the rim of the tub. She sniffed aggressively at the air as she searched the room, and as soon as she found Hanzo she began to outright howl.

 

“Yeah, yeah, there he is,” said Agent D.Va loudly to be heard over Sakura. “Yeah, he’s alive, he’s fine, calm down, geez.” Despite her words, she was grinning. “Nice to hear what her happy howl is--she’s been pissed off for three fucking days.”

 

Hanzo flushed and could not help himself. “Of course,” he said hotly. “The colony is the only home she has ever known, and everyone there is her family. You have taken her from them.”

 

“For sure,” she answered as she carefully swung the tub around. She did not even deign to meet his eyes--she was looking around the room instead. “It was a choice between losing the colony and losing her kittens. This way, everybody lives. Where should I put them down? Next to the bed so she can see him?”

 

“Might as well,” said Dr. Ziegler, raising her voice as well. Sakura was barely taking the time to draw breath between howls and she was staring rather beseechingly at Hanzo while kneading her paws on the rim of the tub in agitation. She obviously wanted to go to him, but she dared not leave her kittens still hidden within the tub--Hanzo doubted she had gone more than a meter away from them since being abducted.

 

At the very least her kittens were not being completely exposed. Agent D.Va crouched and set the tub at the side of the hospital bed and at the foot of the cabinet by its head so Hanzo could look directly down into it. There was a large, low cardboard box taking up about half the space set atop a thick blanket, with a square hole cut into the side with its edges smoothed over with duct tape. A litter box took up much of the space left over, and Sakura herself occupied the rest. As soon as she could see Hanzo without clinging to the rim, Sakura dropped back down to the bottom of the tub and crouched by the hole, her howls settling into closed-mouth yowls and growls as she looked from Agent D.Va to Dr. Ziegler and back again, the hair along her spine on end and her green eyes huge on either side of the tan line splitting her face.

 

Agent D.Va stayed crouched by the tub. “There, now you can see your buddy,” she said matter-of-factly to Sakura.

 

Sakura hissed at her.

 

Agent D.Va laughed. “I know, I know, I’m terrible.” She looked up at Hanzo and immediately sobered a little. “Hey. How’re you doing?”

 

Hanzo had to fight to meet her gaze--he could hardly take his eyes off Sakura. She was _here._ “I am fine, Agent D.Va,” he said shortly. “How did you bring Sakura here? Where did you keep her?”

 

Agent D.Va sighed. “It wasn’t ideal,” she began, and Hanzo set his jaw. “The only place with room was in one of the bathrooms. She--didn’t like it much. Me and Zen were planning on leaving an orb with her during the flight to keep her calm, but that didn’t pan out. It was also supposed to help give her a good impression of us, but that didn’t happen either, obviously.” She glanced down at the bristling and growling cat. “She’s been okay in the supply closet--a big one, not an actual closet or anything--when no one’s been in there. Athena kept an eye on her, and she explored a little bit and even tried to relocate the kittens under a shelf, but me and Rein had to put a stop to that, so she likes us even less now. Obviously.”

 

“Obviously,” Hanzo echoed, scowling.

 

“And that’s where you come in,” said Agent D.Va, sounding assertive. She shrugged off the backpack. “She likes you, so she’s gonna be a lot happier in here.”

 

“If you allow it, Agent Shimada,” interjected the doctor.

 

“He doesn’t have a choice,” contradicted Agent D.Va. “We made the choice for him, so, sorry, I guess,” she said, glancing at him as she unzipped the backpack on the floor. “But you would have left her kittens to die, so you owe her a little something, too.”

 

Hanzo clenched his jaw, but he could not argue with the truth--he had had no intention of doing anything for the kittens despite the lateness of the season--but if he _had--_

 

“It would have been better,” he said quietly, “to bring only the kittens. They would probably not be the first Sakura has lost, and they can be easily socialized. Sakura is feral. She may never accept humans.”

 

“Maybe,” agreed Agent D.Va, “but me and Zen have accepted responsibility for her. If you don’t want her and she can’t be domesticated, we’ll find a good home for feral cats. There’s three of them here in Gibraltar, and a lot more in Spain. We’ll do right by her. Do you want to help her, too, or no?” She looked him right in the eye as she asked. “Because if you don’t, I’ll just take her back down to the closet where she can be pissed at everything and everyone all alone.”

 

He glared back. “She may remain, but you are still primarily responsible for this situation, and you will not forget it.”

 

“I won’t,” she replied, and her serious tone surprised him--he had only heard her sound so solemn in battle. “Like I said, me and Zen will take care of her. Will you help?”

 

He pursed his lips. It was not as though there was a choice. As Agent D.Va had said, it had been made for him. “Yes,” he said simply.

 

“Thanks,” she said, surprising him once more--the thanks were genuine. “Now then--I’ll swing by mornings, afternoons, and evenings to feed them so they don’t eat you. As for keeping them occupied--” She turned the backpack upside down and shook it hard and a veritable avalanche of objects spilled out into a disordered pile.

 

Most of them were soft fuzzy toys of various bright and loud colors, but there were a few hard clatters and thunks as everything hit the floor. Agent D.Va swiftly picked through the pile and began placing things on the edge of Hanzo’s bed.

 

“Laser pointer, chasers, Kong, cat tunnel,” she listed off, tossing the collapsed hoops next to the chair the cowboy had been sitting on, where it sprang up by itself. Then she placed no less than five remote controls on the cabinet, along with two large bags of soft treats. “I don’t remember which goes to which, so it’ll be a surprise for both you and them. One of them goes to this, though, so careful.” And she dug out an honest-to-goodness anti-grav ball, its hard surface covered in thick, soft cloth and covered in bows and tufts of linen vaguely shaped like mice and birds, and trailing long ropes. It refused to stay on the ground as she set it down--it hovered a few centimeters off the ground, slowing turning over like one of the Omnic monk’s orbs as Agent D.Va handed its wireless charger to the doctor to plug in and leave under the chair.

 

Hanzo could not help staring at everything.

 

Agent D.Va answered the unspoken question. “The pros of being a pro. You get to walk into a pet store and buy _everything,”_ she said with a smirk. “Which reminds me--where’s McCree? He should be here with the--”

 

She was interrupted by a dull thump at the door. “Agent McCree is at the door, Agent Shimada,” announced Athena.

 

Hanzo set his jaw for a moment. “He may enter,” he said after a pause just long enough to be awkward.

 

The door slid open to reveal the cowboy--or rather, to reveal a cat tower as tall as the cowboy himself.

 

“Hey,” he grunted from behind it. “Tell me where t’put this, quick.”

 

“Corner to your left,” said Agent D.Va immediately, to Hanzo’s simultaneous relief and annoyance, but it was as good a spot as any.

 

“Right,” panted the cowboy as he hefted the tower to its appointed spot. He set it down as gently as he could, however, and he immediately turned around and walked slowly toward the tub until he could see Sakura, but no closer. He tipped his hat at her--apparently it was required for hauling around a cat tower. “Hey there, cherry blossom,” he greeted.

 

_Hiss._

 

Despite the warning, Sakura did fall silent at the sight of the cowboy, content to simply lash her tail from side to side and flatten her ears. The cowboy chuckled as he shrugged off a heavy black backpack of his own and set it on the ground with a dull thud. “She remembers me, but I ain’ in her good graces.” He fell silent for a moment, then looked up at Hanzo. “So. Guess you got a new roommate.”

 

It was not an act.

 

The cowboy was genuinely trying for conversation despite everything, from the short-term of Hanzo kicking him out of this very room an hour before to the long-term of--absolutely everything.

 

It was strange watching the cowboy’s behavior in this light. He seemed almost alien now that Hanzo knew he was trying to be friendly--actually trying. It was like meeting Agents Mei and Lúcio all over again and wondering at their immediate friendliness--with the added overtone of having seen murder in the cowboy’s face.

 

Now the same face was trying for a brave, awkward smile.

 

The cowboy was trying to smooth over the sour note their meeting had ended on by smiling at him and engaging with him over cats.

 

Surreal.

 

Hanzo had a sudden intense flashback to the colony, when he and the cowboy had stumbled upon the congregation of cats surrounding the Omnic monk and--

 

\--and the cowboy had given Hanzo his comm and obligated him to take silly pictures of him in forced-perspective poses, acting as though he was petting the cats that would not let him near.

 

That had been--genuine. Not an attempt to lower Hanzo’s guard. Genuine behavior by a ex-black ops vigilante with a sixty million dollar bounty.

 

Surreal.

 

It truly did feel like he was meeting the cowboy for the first time.

 

“Yes,” he managed to reply at last in a tolerable tone, though it sounded tight to his own ears. “Yes, I--she will likely be happier here.”

 

“For sure,” said the cowboy, and his smile relaxed by a fair amount. Hanzo regarded it with a flat look. Now that he knew the cowboy’s smile hid far less than murderous intent, it was somewhat startling to see how it was almost determinedly disarming.

 

“I was way happier outta the closet, too,” quipped the cowboy. “Mine was full of rattlesnakes, though, so she ain’ got quite as much t’complain about.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips and raised his eyebrow slightly, but otherwise let the quip lie.

 

Agent D.Va, however, rolled her eyes and said, “Her ‘closet’ is bigger than this room, so she’s downgrading. She had nothing to complain about--except getting kidnapped by strangers.”

 

Sakura gave a long, meandering, and displeased meow.

 

“Alright, alright, we’re going, we’re going,” said Agent D.Va, and despite her exasperated tone, she smiled down at Sakura--or at the tuft of orange fur that poked out of the hole in the cardboard box. Sakura’s response was immediate--she darted to the hole and very nearly shoved at it with her nose, sending the tuft tumbling back inside. “Kitten sighting! They’re still here, everyone, they’re still here.”

 

Catching Hanzo’s sharp glance, she added, “Athena’s been keeping on eye on them, but Sakura does her best not to let them out when there’s someone physically in the room. Here’s hoping she likes you well enough to let them get some exercise.”

 

“Oh, something tells me she does,” said the cowboy, and he returned Hanzo’s flat look with a _grin._

 

It must have been frustrating for the cowboy, thought Hanzo sourly, that his charming smiles had had so little effect these past weeks. He had the feeling he was used to much more success with a wink and a smile. He was certainly handsome enough to have more than the average effect.

 

“At any rate, unless you need something else, Agent Shimada, we can get outta your hair--oop, right after we set up the most important thing, that is,” said the cowboy, and he unzipped the heavy backpack and took out a large litterbox, scooper, and an open bag of litter. He set them down on the other side of the bathroom door and filled the box with a small cloud of dust. As he straightened he said, “It’s flushable, by the by, so that’ll make things easier. She seems to understand what the litter is for, but be careful--we hadta throw out a few toys that she used t’cover some of her piss. Good news is the cleaner we got takes care of the smell pretty good. Feel free t’give Song here a call t’clean up any accidents.”

 

Agent D.Va made a face but nodded in agreement.

 

“And you can ask Athena to open up the window if any smells are gettin’ to ya.” The cowboy gestured at the window, and Hanzo looked at it--and finally saw the view. On one side there was a rough cliffside of pale rock, while on the other was the backside of a severe military building clad in a grey gunmetal facade that looked very much like some of the buildings in Watchpoint: Niigata. In-between was a wide space that opened up to reveal the glittering blue-grey surface of the sea, dappled with wavering points of sunlight reflecting off the waves.

 

“Do you need anything more from him, Angie?” asked the cowboy, recapturing Hanzo’s attention.

 

“No, not at present,” replied the doctor, standing from where she had been arranging the cat toys to scatter across the floor while leaving a clear path both to the bathroom and the entrance. “I will be checking in on you regularly while you’re here, Agent Shimada--at least four times daily. If you feel any physical change, alert Athena and I will come as quickly as possible.”

 

Hanzo nodded, regret stirring in his chest that she would have to trouble herself so often.

 

“Alright, then, we’ll leave you to get reacquainted, and to give Sakura a break. She’s had quite enough of people for now.”

 

Sakura had settled right in front of the cardboard box, physically blocking the hole. Her eyes and ears twitched with every movement of Agent D.Va and the doctor.

 

The cowboy was the first out the door, tipping his hat again as he went. Hanzo could not help a slight huff at the gesture. Agent D.Va and Dr. Ziegler left together, both nodding at Hanzo in a friendly way.

 

Hanzo sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh, feeling--not fatigued by the interaction, but worn by it. So much yet so little had changed.

 

But he was immediately distracted from his thoughts as Sakura leapt at him.

 

She jumped straight from her spot by the cardboard box, landing by his lap on the bed, and she was yowling again, as loudly and as insistently as she had at the colony, which in the closed room was almost enough to make him press his hands against his ears as she almost pounded her front paws on his chest and screamed in his face.

 

“Yes, yes,” he said soothingly in Japanese. “You have had a terrible time, I know. I’m sorry, little one, I didn’t know what they were planning.”

 

She was not satisfied by his excuses, but she did switch from open-mouthed yowls to closed-mouth burbles as she climbed bodily on his chest and began rubbing against his neck, beard, and face. He was both surprised and not surprised--given the stress she had been under and the fact he was the lone familiar face she had seen in days, perhaps he should have expected this--but he had been truthful with the cowboy back at the colony. She had never been so affectionate before. She would ask for pets and rub against his legs in greeting, but one might assume that he was her owner from her current behavior.

 

After a few moments it became apparent that she did not intend to let up anytime soon, so he attempted to push her down and appease her at the same time by reaching up with his left hand and pet/push her, but all she did was incorporate his hand into her determined effort to thoroughly scent him. He could only be thankful that her personal hygiene had not been affected by her sudden change in circumstances, but she was inevitably leaving a fair amount of fur in her wake. The feeling of it sticking to his stubble uncomfortably reminded him that he desperately needed to shave--he probably looked quite wild, even after the shower.

 

The only thing capable of detaining Sakura turned out to be a quiet mewl from the tub. She instantly desisted and darted to the edge of the bed, looking down and meowing. The orange tuft had reappeared, revealing itself to be a wobbly yet determined kitten. They looked up at the sound of their mother and found her quite easily--both their eyes and ears were clearly open.

 

Sakura was clearly displeased to see them out in the open, and she carefully jumped down to voice her opinion at close-range, her growls interrupted by licks as she gave the kitten a quick wash before taking them up by the scruff.

 

But instead of dropping them back inside the cardboard box, she turned around, gathered herself, and leapt as lightly as she could back onto the bed, kitten still in her mouth. They meowed a bit in surprise, but she paid them no mind as she considered Hanzo’s body under the sheets before dropping them between his legs.

 

“What are you doing?” Hanzo asked her quietly as the the kitten meowed fretfully and turned around in place. Instead of replying, she dropped back down into the tub and her front half disappeared into the cardboard box for a few moments before she backed back out to reveal a second kitten, this one solid black and substantially smaller than the first. This one struggled much more in its mother’s grip, but she paid them no mind as she jumped up and deposited them next to the first. “Wait,” said Hanzo, holding out a hand, figuring out her intent at last, but it was too late--she had gone back for the third.

 

Apparently, Sakura had five kittens.

 

She flopped down on her side by his metal feet to close off their only easy escape and began to purr as Hanzo looked appraisingly at her brood. The orange kitten was by far the most developed and active, almost to the point that Hanzo suspected they might be the result of a pregnancy that began two or three days before the others. The other kittens, one solid black, two white-and-black tabbies, and one a bright and varied calico like their mother, were struggling to their feet, but seemed much more willing to give up for a few minutes as soon as they fell over. The orange kitten, by contrast, fell much less often and almost sprang back to its feet as soon as possible.

 

Hanzo named them Taro almost without thinking.

 

He blanched at himself when he murmured the name at he offered a single finger for Taro to sniff as they tried to escape over his leg, but he hardly knew why--he had hardly blinked at naming the cats before. But--then again--he doubted Agent D.Va had had them under her care for this long without naming them herself. Perhaps that was what his subconscious was objecting to.

 

“Athena?” he said quietly as Ta--as the orange kitten fell back with a startled chirp.

 

“Yes, Agent Shimada?” said Athena instantly, her voice seemingly coming from nowhere. He could not place the speakers yet.

 

“Do you know what names Agent D.Va has given the kittens?”

 

“She hasn’t given them any thus far,” she replied, to his surprise.

 

“I see,” said Hanzo quietly. He frowned. He almost wished she had--he would hardly be able to avoid doing so, out of habit if nothing else.

 

Well. He had changed cats’ names before when they turned out to be unsuitable for one reason or another. He could do it again--but he would limit himself to the one regardless.

 

Soon he was offering Taro and their siblings a chaser to help distract them from escape attempts, bouncing a large feather in front of them and watching them first retreat then creep forward to investigate the strange apparition. Taro, unsurprisingly, was the most forward, trying to bat at the feather with their paws without falling over, and with practice they improved considerably.

 

Sakura, on the other hand, looked like she was only just holding herself back from leaping at the feather herself--she had rolled upright as soon as she saw it, her tail lashing from side to side as she followed its motions. Once even Taro had tired of the feather and turned to one of their siblings for their amusement, Hanzo offered the feather to her--and she immediately latched onto it with a lightning-fast motion far too fast to see.

 

Hanzo smiled. To be expected of a feral veteran of the abandoned wastelands.

 

It took a few hard tugs to get the feather out of her grip for a second go, and she caught it just as quickly though he tried to keep it just out of reach. He glanced at the row of remote controls on the bedside cabinet--truth be told, he had suspected that Agent D.Va had jumped the gun with the vast majority of the cat toys. The kittens were not likely to independently show interest in them for at least a few more days, with the possible exception of Taro--but perhaps Sakura would be the one to break them in.

 

After the stress of being kidnapped and transported halfway around the world in a tiny bathroom before spending three days in the presence of complete strangers who were taking a baffling interest in both her and her brood, she could certainly use some distraction.

 

So he gave her just that.

 

The first toy was a disturbingly realistic mechanical mouse, complete with articulated limbs and tail. When Hanzo first pressed on the remote control and it burst out from under a small pile of toys, it was hard to know who reacted faster, himself or Sakura. But it was saved from being crushed under his metal heel by the kittens still between his legs on the bed, so Sakura had a chance to dart off the bed and pounce straight onto it to reveal its underside emblazoned with the stylized letters D.VA.

 

Hanzo narrowed his eyes as he looked around the room. Most of the other toys had been scattered about individually around the floor. The mouse had been under the only pile.

 

He would not have been so surprised by that fact--except it had been Dr. Ziegler, not Agent D.Va, who arranged them so.

 

Well.

 

He would not dissect that at the moment.

 

Sakura did her very best to disembowel her prize in a fit of primal victory, but the cloth proved too tough--for now--so soon she satisfied herself with biting at its neck for a minute before jumping up on the bed and depositing it next to Hanzo before she sat back, wrapped her tail around her legs, and smugly looked at him, as though asking to be thanked for the thoughtful gift.

 

Hanzo took perhaps more pleasure than strictly warranted in making her jump back in surprise when her kill abruptly returned to life and tumbled back off the bed before making a break towards the bathroom door.

 

But her reaction time and speed was such that he soon had to figure out how to control at least two toys at once--the odds were dramatically stacked against a single toy. All of them, he soon discovered, had a random motion mode, but that, too, was woefully unequal to Sakura’s prowess, except as a diversion tactic.

 

The kittens, meanwhile, had very luckily tired themselves out by exploring their change in circumstances, and thus slept most of the time away, nestled up against Hanzo’s thighs as much as the sheet allowed.

 

When the overhead light suddenly turned on by itself, it startled Hanzo for more than one reason--he had not noticed that the full daylight outside the window had softened to the soft, dull orange of sunset.

 

Only a few moments later, Athena announced that both Dr. Ziegler and Agent D.Va had returned.

 

Hanzo glanced at Sakura, gauging her reaction to the disembodied voice, but Sakura hardly reacted--she continued biting at the neck of a salamander toy and raking at its belly with her back claws, trying to make sure it stayed dead this time.

 

She would certainly not take the reappearance of humans as well, he was sure.

 

“A moment, please, Athena,” he said as he disconnected the IV and began to carefully slide his legs out from under the sheet. Sakura noticed the motion right away--she was almost instantly on the bed, meowing loudly at him and sniffing at her kittens, trying to see what was provoking him to “leave” them.

 

He cautiously reached out and cupped Taro’s sleep-limp body in his hand. Sakura watched him intently, but did not object as he stood and leaned over the laundry tub and dropped them back inside the cardboard box. She sat back and watched him do the same with the rest of the kittens, relieved, perhaps, that she did not have to do it herself for once.

 

She stiffened and drew back a little when Hanzo tried to pick her up, however--even _her_ affection had limits. He tried to tempt her to at least jump into the tub with a couple of toys and a treat from one of the bags, but she merely lounged on the bed, paying him no heed whatsoever.

 

He finally shrugged his shoulders. “Be it on your head,” he muttered as he sat on the bed and reattached the IV. “They may enter, Athena.”

 

Luckily, his visitors knocked before they entered. Sakura apparently knew the sound well--she immediately leapt into the tub and all but plugged up the hole in the cardboard box with her body, growling and moaning all the while. Only then did the door slide open.

 

“Dinner time!” Agent D.Va sang out as she wielded a large tray laid out with six small plates with generous helpings of wet cat food piled on each.

 

Sakura folded her ears back in irritation.

 

“You may wish to be more quiet,” Hanzo said, his own voice low. “She is not used to humans, much less the sounds we make.”

 

“Yup, and the sooner she is, the better,” Agent D.Va shot back. “It’ll make things easier in the long run--plus, the kittens need to hear me, too, or they’ll never be socialized.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips in sheer irritation--but the quiet hours he had spent alone had done much to restore his equilibrium, and his brain managed to catch up with him before he said something unfortunate.

 

Agent D.Va was right--the situation had changed from when Hanzo needed to be as quiet and unintrusive as possible while trespassing in the colony’s territory. Now, like it or not, Sakura was living among humans, and she would have to adapt as best she could--or wither away. He looked down at her, sitting tense and anxious in the tub, watching Agent D.Va and the doctor’s every move. Yes, the sooner, the better.

 

Agent D.Va could stand to moderate her approach, however.

 

“The kittens are only just capable of seeing and hearing. They are currently taking almost all of their cues from Sakura,” he said, trying to sound as non-accusatory as possible. “It is impossible not to antagonize her, but the less we anger her, the less she will pass on her distrust to her kittens.”

 

Agent D.Va levied a look at him, but rather than being flippant as he expected, it was faintly calculating. “Okay,” she said, and she actually lowered her voice. “Any other suggestions?”

 

“Move slower,” said Hanzo, somewhat surprised that she seemed to be listening. “She is watching every move you make.”

 

“Right?” she muttered. “It’s like being watched by my drill sergeant all over again.” She threw a hard look at Sakura who stared balefully back. “Alright. Anything else?”

 

Hanzo thought for a moment, looking from Sakura to Agent D.Va and back again. Something occurred to him, and he almost wrinkled his nose, rather dreading where this conversation may lead, but nevertheless he asked, “Have you been habituating her to your scent?”

 

She raised her eyebrow. “You mean--more than just being here, you mean?”

 

“Yes,” Hanzo replied. “It is--best--to leave a piece of cloth that smells like you close by their sleeping space.” Hanzo had also used it in the past to judge how likely new kittens in the colony were to tolerate him--if a new mother quickly moved her litter to avoid the scent, then she was unlikely to have passed much genetic predisposition for domesticity on to her children.

 

Sakura’s predispositions, however, were not in doubt. She had always been astonishingly friendly--in the right circumstances. And she was completely unable to flee from any scents they put near her, so she would have no choice but to accustom herself to them.

 

Hanzo grimaced at the thought of how much anxiety she would have to endure, but there was nothing to do but ease her way as much as possible.

 

Agent D.Va, to her credit, placed the food on the floor outside the box rather than risk Sakura’s displeasure, or get in range of it at least. She stood and looked down at her with a smile. “What’s new?” she asked, lowering her voice.

 

Sakura close-mouthed groaned in response.

 

“Wow, you’ve been really good for her,” Agent D.Va observed, surprising Hanzo once more. “That’s the longest she’s ever gone without hissing at me. What kind of ‘cloth’ are we talking here? How stinky does it have to be?”

 

Now came the time for the most awkward part of the conversation. “The stronger the better,” he said, trying to sound as clinical and detached as possible--he sounded somewhat like Dr. Ziegler, actually, when she was at her most professional. She was currently checking the machines at his bedside and tapping away at her tablet. “A shirt you have worn while exercising or even a bedsheet you have slept on for two or three days. You could leave it in that empty corner,” he said, nodding at the one opposite the cat tower.

 

“The one furthest from you?” asked Agent D.Va, sounding amused. “Alright, I got some dirty laundry I can bring up. Should I get some from everyone here while I’m at it, or would that be too much?”

 

Hanzo thought for a moment. “She is already overwhelmed,” he said musingly. “It would be best to limit the scents to only the people she will regularly see.”

 

“That’s pretty much everyone,” she replied. Hanzo’s heart sank a little. Everyone? “Reinhardt can’t get enough of them, but you know that already.”

 

Hanzo looked at her blankly.

 

“When he came to see them?” said Agent D.Va, turning the statement into a question at the last moment, suddenly unsure. “What, he hasn’t come up yet?”

 

“No,” said Hanzo.

 

“Really? Wow. I didn’t think anything could keep him away,” she said, eyebrows raised. “He’s been trying to get a second glimpse at the kittens since he helped me move them. He’ll probably be here any second then.”

 

“Reinhardt is not nearly _so_ casual,” Dr. Ziegler said lightly. “He knows his--boisterousness--can be overwhelming at times, and that Agent Shimada is recovering. He’ll likely check with both me _and_ yourself, Agent Shimada, before he visits.”

 

Hanzo let out a slow breath he did not realize he had been holding. The thought of a stranger barrelling in at any moment was not the least bit reassuring, especially one as giant as he remembered seeing at the Niigata warehouse.

 

At any rate, he could think of other reasons why he would not wish to visit so soon. The cowboy had said he was part of Overwatch’s old guard. He knew.

 

Dr. Ziegler asked after his physical condition, but as nothing had changed there was little to say. She accepted his short, concise answers and recorded them in her tablet. Agent D.Va, meanwhile, hung around despite having completed her task, drifting around the room and toeing at all the toys that had moved since she had left.

 

Dr. Ziegler finished up by listening to Hanzo’s chest, stomach, and back before she requested that he contact her about any needs he might have and bid him a good night.

 

Hanzo thought Agent D.Va was waiting to leave with the doctor, so he was surprised when she stayed behind.

 

She waited for the door to finish sliding closed before she walked up to the foot of Hanzo’s bed, looking at him with a serious expression. “So,” she said brusquely. “Winston says Talon got within 85% of reactivating the Omnium. There’s no telling how much time we had left on the clock, but it wasn’t much.”

 

“I see,” said Hanzo, at a loss of what else he was supposed to say about that piece of trivia.

 

“So,” she repeated, and it seemed she also did not know what exactly to say--and she did not like that at all, judging by her deep frown. “So--I guess--McCree and Tracer didn’t want me to use the self-destruct. They wanted to slow down and talk about it. I guess. If we had, then--”

 

Hanzo nodded. If they had, then Ainu-Mosir would likely be largely devoid of human life by now. But they had not and it was not--so he did not know what Agent D.Va was driving at.

 

She opened her mouth, closed it, and looked increasingly frustrated. “I don’t want to say ‘thanks’ for just listening to me--not exactly,” she said after a few moments. “More like--it’s a good thing you did, even though it was crazy. But _you_ were pretty crazy, too, climbing on top of my MEKA like that, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. But--you--you didn’t really have a reason to trust me like that, you know. You just did. That does surprise me, a lot.”

 

He raised an eyebrow. “As you say, Agent D.Va,” he said, keeping his tone level, “there was no way of knowing how much time there was left and you had a solution that required my assistance. It was an extreme solution, but so was the situation. If there had been another way, perhaps I would have hesitated, but there was not. It is as simple as that.”

 

Agent D.Va’s eyes narrowed as she stared hard at his face. “Simple as that,” she echoed, shaking her head a little.

 

Silence descended for a few moments.

 

“Welp,” said Agent D.Va suddenly, “time for me to jet out of this awkward conversation. You need anything or--?”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips slightly at the inelegant end to the conversation, but it was just as well that it was over. “No, thank you, Agent D.Va.”

 

She snorted. “After everything that’s happened,” she said dryly, “you can drop the ‘Agent’. Call me D.Va or Song or something. But you’ve got a stick up your ass, so--maybe ‘Ms. Song’? Ew, no. Call me Song, alright?”

 

Hanzo could not help but think back to the last time an Overwatch agent had asked him to refer to them more casually and how well that had ended, but there was little he could do but acquiescence. “Very well--Song,” he said as neutrally as possible, adding the last work when she looked at him expectantly.

 

Agent D.Va laughed as she turned around and headed for the door. “Oh, it’s already worth it just to hear how wrong you think it sounds. See you later, cowboy.”

 

Hanzo stared after her. He longed to demand why she was calling _him_ ‘cowboy’ now--but the answer came to him in almost the same moment. He scowled at her back as the door closed behind her--if he had known that climbing atop the MEKA would earn him such a moniker--

 

Sakura, letting out disgruntled grumbles, carefully vaulted over the rim of the tub and onto the floor, sniffing cautiously in the direction of the wet cat food.

 

Hanzo distracted himself from the strange atmosphere Agent D.Va had left behind by slowly getting out of bed and reaching into the cardboard box to scoop out the kittens one by one. Taro would likely be ready to at least try a little bit of solid food, and their siblings might be also. Sakura could be trusted to finish off any leftovers.

 

To his surprise, all five of the kittens seemed quite ready to eat some food, needing only minimal encouragement from himself and Sakura to approach and nibble at the piles. Sakura did not eat at first--instead she placed herself between her exposed kittens and the door and kept watch for a few minutes. Eventually, though, she threw the door a distrustful glance but approached the biggest plate and began to wolf it down. He frowned. She would not be used to processed food and how easy it was to eat, of course, so he could only hope the food was not about to reappear. He made a mental note to ask Agent D.Va to divide her food into smaller portions.

 

Taro, predictably, ate the most, but even they consumed less than a quarter of what was available. Once satiated, they joined their siblings who had gathered into a loose clump of fur for a post-meal snooze; everything was exhausting at their age.

 

Sakura, on the other hand, powered through her portion and one of the kittens’ leftovers before Hanzo disconnected the IV to stand and gather the rest to keep her from overeating. She did not appreciate it--she meowed indignantly as he set four plates on the bathroom floor and closed the door. “You may have more soon,” he admonished as he picked him his comm. There was more than Sakura’s feelings to consider, after all--in this unknown environment he was fearful of insects that may be attracted to the smell. The sooner the source was gone, the better.

 

He dutifully reattached the IV line, but there was enough slack that instead of getting back into bed he knelt on the floor between the kitten pile and the tub, just for a change of pace. Sakura’s indignation had mellowed when her full stomach caught up with her, and she wrapped her body around most of the kittens and began to purr contently.

 

He had not expected such a scene in Watchpoint: Gibraltar, but here it was.

 

After a few moments spent wondering at the circumstances, he passed the time catching up on what the news outlets outside of the Far East were calling the Second Battle of the Hokkaido Omnium, which was not the least bit accurate--the Japanese and Chinese outlets even had huffy editorials meant to remind the world that there had been five battles in the vicinity of that particular Omnium, and this had been tiny in comparison. The Japanese outlets were quite determined to minimize it to an “incident” or even a “disturbance”. Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese outlets were more willing to call it a skirmish at the very least.

 

It was an open battle to sensationalize it as much as possible everywhere else.

 

What all of them had, however, were photos and videos.

 

Hanzo’s heart seized a little at the first photo, which clearly showed four figures headed for the ramp of the Orca, and it was high enough resolution for him to zoom in on the silver figure, its back to the Orca, sword out. Before him were two Bastion units in tank mode.

 

Their escape had evidently been perilous. The shimmery blue figure of Agent Tracer at Gen--at Genji’s side was little comfort as the two Overwatch agents defended the retreat of the Omnic monk and the injured Agent D.Va. The Omnic monk was still walking, supporting and half-dragging her along.

 

The next photo showed the moment after he took a hit from one of the Bastions.

 

Agent D.Va was sprawled on her face an impressive distance away if she had been thrown by the Omnic monk and not the explosion itself, but Agent Zenyatta himself was in two large pieces, his legs and the lower part of his torso twisted and blackened on one side of a column of smoke. By the time the picture was taken, he was already dragging the rest of his body towards Agent D.Va by his fingernails.

 

Hanzo regarded the scene solemnly.

 

If there were any doubt about Agent Zenyatta’s dedication, it was firmly settled. Hanzo felt like in the back of his mind he had thought--even somewhat hoped--that he might reveal some failing of bravery in battle, that a monk who had spent his time meditating high in the mountaintops might falter when confronted with the harsh physical world, but of course he had not. It had been unlikely, of course, but the dishonorable, spiteful hope probably originated in Hanzo’s personal dislike of him--or perhaps from the vague notion that he had set out to water down Genji’s thirst for vengeance because he did not understand the magnitude of his pain and suffering.

 

Well. There he lay, in two seperate pieces.

 

Just as Gen--

 

Just--

 

Just as Genji once had.

 

The next photo showed his brother, and Hanzo had to close his eyes for a moment--the unknown photographer had managed to catch him in the midst of giving himself over to his dragon.

 

He had already dismantled both Bastions and was foolishly dashing back alone to cut apart one last approaching unit.

 

Of course he was--he was likely anguished to see his own fate visited upon his master.

 

His words took on an even sharper edge now.

 

_I have not forgotten._

 

How could he, after such a reminder?

 

And still he came.

 

Still he came.

 

Genji’s forgiveness was a greater and stronger and more terrible thing than Hanzo had ever imagined.

 

_You know now, right? I’m not the only one you were wrong about._

 

Hanzo began swiping through the rest of the photos, intending to distract himself, but unfortunately it worked better than he intended.

 

There he was.

 

Being dragged across the ground by the cowboy, leaving a thin streak of blood behind him, the sleeve of his _gi_ untucked from his belt and trailing and nearly tugging the rest of it off.

 

Hanzo set his jaw. His face was easily visible, even under the nightvision glasses.

 

Anyone who knew him would recognize him instantly.

 

It had been years since anyone could prove Shimada Hanzo was unquestionably among the living, and there he was in the middle of an almost-reactivated Omnium, being dragged into shelter by the man with the third-highest bounty in the world. The article did not name him specifically, but the right people, both in the underground and in law enforcement, could not possibly miss this.

 

The general public, on the other hand, were far more interested in others present. The headline of this article was _Former Overwatch Vigilantes Seen in Omnium,_ which, coming from a Japanese newspaper, was just this side of censure. Others were speculative at best and subtly critical at worst with the same photographs, but all of them readily identified the cowboy, Agent Tracer, Agent D.Va, and “an unnamed agent formerly affiliated with both Overwatch and Blackwatch.” Even Agent Zenyatta was being tentatively identified as a possible Shambali monk. In that light, it was gratifying that Hanzo was not being explicitly named, even in the _Hanamura Shimpo_ or _Murashin._

 

But, again, in Hanamura there was little need for a caption under his photograph.

 

But he was not the only “local celebrity” by any means. The Korean media were positively buzzing about Agent D.Va’s presence, but it appeared that the Republic of Korea Armed Forces had her back--there was an official statement that, while it could not reveal details, Agent D.Va’s position was both known and authorized. _That_ was rather astounding--why was Korea extending itself to cover her participation in an explicitly illegal paramilitary group banned by the UN? And why was the UN not doing more about it? _They_ could hardly overlook this when it had happened literally under their noses.

 

But it had only been three days. Who knew what was currently happening behind closed doors in the diplomatic and military channels.

 

But over and over, a recurring theme worldwide became clear:

 

Another one.

 

The Siberia Omnium had sent shockwaves through the generations that had endured the Omnic Crisis and had thought themselves free from that peril forever, but when the fighting had halted the first advance of the newly manufactured battalions and evolved into a bloody yet stable stalemate that stretched into weeks and months, even the most reactionary elements of society had largely quieted. Russia was bearing the brunt of the reactivated Omnium with mounting casualties that had already topped 15,000, but that was a drop in a bucket compared to the Crisis’ three billion. Whatever had happened in Siberia, it was apparently a weak echo, and what had been labeled the beginning of the Second Omnic Crisis had seemingly settled into something not unlike Korea’s situation. Local and contained.

 

But Overwatch’s striketeam had not been the only ones spotted. Talon’s shadow now hung ominously over not only the Hokkaido Omnium, but over the Siberia Omnium and, indeed, every Omnium worldwide.

 

Every single country hosting a post-Crisis ruin had strengthened defenses surrounding them with the help of the UN, but the idea that a terrorist organization had set up camp right under the nose of a top-notch military with UN backing--the JDSF and UN had recovered eighty-three Talon corpses in all--and that it may have deliberately attempted to power it up was sending shockwaves worldwide.

 

That, if nothing else, was bringing a surprising number of media outlets to the fore of defending the “former Overwatch vigilantes”. Agent Tracer and Winston had already made a splash by defending the Doomfist Gauntlet the month before Genji confronted Hanzo in Hanamura, which was pointed out in virtually all the articles and videos Hanzo saw, but at the time most had been dismissive or critical, especially given the property damage.

 

Now, however, with proof of a possible concerted effort to reawaken the gravest threat to humanity’s existence ever known, many were having a marked shift in tone, ranging from questioning the competence of the UN and other military forces to enthusiastically endorsing the apparent and spontaneous return to service by Agent Tracer in particular--she was something of a favorite of the media, to the point where some were saying that any venture she was assisting could not possibly be anything but benign, even if she was fighting alongside less savory characters.

 

No one seemed to know what to make of the infamous Jesse McCree being there. The Japanese media was loudly questioning how he had gotten into the country in the first place, with only a few passing mentions of how he seemed to be fighting alongside a Japanese-speaking yet relatively unknown former member of Blackwatch, who himself had unambiguously been fighting alongside Agent Tracer, therefore it seemed likely that the outlaw cowboy was one of her allies as well.

 

Regardless, the JSDF was finding itself in increasingly hot water as it shouldered a barrage of questions about how so very many unauthorized people, some of them well-known, could have gained entry to one of the “most secure” places in Japan.

 

Ms. Vaswani had also been caught in action, and she was being correctly credited as the means of escape for the cowboy, the former Blackwatch agent, a former Overwatch agent, “an injured unknown third party”, and another unknown third party using Helix Security technology--Agent Pharah, it seemed, was the only person on the team with the sense to wear a mask obscuring the lower half of her face and was thus the only one to completely escape identification. Ms. Vaswani, on the other hand, had even looked straight into the lens of whatever platform was being used to record the scene, much as she had with Hanzo’s drone.

 

He could not help but wonder at her actions. She had seemed intent on hiding as much as she could from Vishkar, but there was no hope of that now--she was being named everywhere both as Satya Vaswani and as a noted architech. Vishkar had thus far declined comment, saying that it was working with Japanese authorities to determine the reasons she was there, but the investigation was being stymied because they did not know exactly where she was.

 

The rumor that she was being held by local Ainu authorities led him to the small Ainu-language newspapers, blogs, and TV stations that served Ainu-Mosir--and they were not being subtle at all.

 

**AN=KAMUI-KORAMETOK AINU-MOSIR EN OOWATPA**

 

“Our Heroes Return to Ainu-Mosir,” proclaimed both newspapers, word-for-word.

 

It was strange seeing such a term applied to him, though everyone involved in the mission apparently shared the moniker--all nine people associated with Overwatch in one form or another who had been at the Omnium were pictured prominently underneath the headline, and most of the coverage was focused on how close the island had come to disaster and the relief and gratitude of its inhabitants to the people who had swooped in to prevent it. There was not a single critical word in any Ainu article or broadcast--except of the UN and the JSDF, of course, but that was a given.

 

The closest to censure the Ainu had gone was that everything published in the first day or so after the battle rather conspicuously omitted both Agent Zenyatta and Ms. Vaswani from their coverage--rather than demonizing or even speculating about them, they simply did not mention them. Then, both Ainu newspapers published formal editorials flanked by letters to the editor with words of thanks to each individual member of the team, including Agent Zenyatta and Ms. Vaswani, and thereafter they were included in the heroic acclaim. That, more than anything, convinced Hanzo that more information was being disseminated among the Ainu than was available elsewhere, which was not surprising given the small size of the community. It allowed him to pinpoint with some accuracy when Winston must have convinced either Asai or others among the Ainu that both the Omnic monk and the Vishkar agent were not responsible for the near-calamity and had, in fact, aided in preventing it.

 

He rather agitatedly scanned every article and broadcast for his own name, Ifukube or otherwise, but to his surprise there was nothing besides his picture. Instead, he was being addressed as “Acapo-Akno” by nearly everyone.

 

Uncle Archer.

 

Apt, if predictable.

 

But this--

 

\--this was the final death knell to ever returning to Ainu-Mosir.

 

There was some hope of going back when some level of anonymity was preserved among the Ainu, but there was absolutely none now. Among such a small, tightknit community his face would never be forgotten--he might as well walk into Shimada Castle in broad daylight.

 

Hanzo lay the comm to one side and stared at the nearly pitch-black window for a long time when that realization hit him.

 

As if to spite himself, he was already concocting plans of how he might return via a private boat, landing in some abandoned port or on a secluded beach, but that would be the only way. Any way that included being seen was now off the table.

 

All of Japan might be off the table for a very long time, come to think of it. Now that he was known to be alive, who knew how long he must wait before he could even attempt to safely return.

 

So long to the vast majority of his caches, his equipment, and his supplies.

 

All he had now was what he had in his cello case and suitcase.

 

Spurred by that knowledge, he disconnected the IV and went to check his belongings--he chastised himself for not doing so immediately when Dr. Ziegler had brought them, but it had already been a long, tiring, strange day. He could not really trust himself to do anything correctly at the best of times.

 

Everything was as it should be, clothes, supplies, and Storm Bow, which he checked thoroughly--who knew who had recovered it, Gen--Genji or the cowboy, but either way it was unharmed, though incomplete with no arrows to accompany it. Nevertheless, Hanzo propped it against the bedside cabinet within reach.

 

The hospital room was looking quite cluttered with the mess of cat toys, luggage, and weaponry in it.

 

The leftover chocolate and energy bars from the MREs awakened a distant longing that was not true hunger--more of a sense that he should want to eat. He hid them deeper within the cello case to avoid it.

 

While he did that, he found the orb.

 

It was inert, the white light in the etched circles completely absent, the metal cool to the touch. It almost felt like a dead thing, and Hanzo frowned at the perception as he held it and turned it over in one hand.

 

He could remember the cowboy shouting about it, just as he blacked out. He did not know if it worked to counteract poison, but it was possible that, whether or not he had accepted the Omnic nun’s gift, he now owed his life to her and her misplaced gift.

 

He thought back to the ice cold feeling of her touch, the scrutinizing look from the frozen, unemotive faceplate, her insistence that he take the orb with him even if he did not accept it.

 

Another level of complexity to the whole dour business.

 

He put the orb into a hidden pocket, trying to ignore the slight tremble in his fingers.

 

Forgiveness and acceptance and trust and tolerance and gratitude and generosity from so many unexpected sources.

 

Perhaps it was time to end the day.

 

He stood after latching the cello case closed and went to the bathroom, ignoring a questioning _mrr_ from Sakura. For her peace of mind, he left the door open as he relieved himself, washed his face, and brushed his teeth even though he had not eaten anything. He almost began to drink some water from his cupped hands from some urge to consume liquid, but he stopped himself--he did not know if the prohibition on food extended to liquids, and he felt adequately hydrated thanks to the IV.

 

He returned to the hospital bed and sat to reconnect the IV line, watching Sakura nose at her still-sleeping kittens and wash them with her tongue one-by-one before lifting them up and begin returning them to the tub. It seemed she, too, was done for the day--or she was preparing to hunt. He hoped he would not have to spend too much tiring her out if she was hoping to hunt. She was used to ranging over great distances, after all.

 

He was laying himself down to rest--or stare at the ceiling or wall, more likely--when the comm chimed.

 

“Agent Shimada,” said Athena from wherever the loudspeaker was. “Agent McCree must speak with you urgently.”

 

Hanzo tried to react quickly, but truth but told, it took some effort to sit back up, especially to face the cowboy again. He ran his fingers through his hair to at least attempt to look presentable before he reached down to pick the comm up off the floor. His notion that it was a video call was proven true.

 

“Agent Shimada,” he said, wincing slightly--he sounded terse. Perhaps he was more tired than he realized.

 

“Hey, Agent Shimada, sorry t’barge in like this,” said the cowboy, sounding a bit breathless. The close-up view of cowboy’s face was bouncing slightly--he was hurrying somewhere. “Got caught by surprise by this myself.” Hanzo could believe it--the cowboy’s hair was almost soaking wet, looking like it had gotten a barest of touches from a towel.

 

He must have gotten caught in the shower. To Hanzo’s surprise, the cowboy seemed to have cleaned himself up a little--his stubble looked far more managed, his beard trimmed once more, though as dark and waterlogged as his hair.

 

“I just got a call from Winston in Hokkaido,” the cowboy explained over the sound of his hurried footfalls. “He’s managed t’score a collaboration with the Ainu--they’re gonna help the team investigate the area around the Omnium a bit, see if they can get a few more clues about what exactly Talon was up to and how they did it. Apparently the Ainu have got a fair few contacts in the UN and JSDF, so they might be able t’get ‘em pretty close. But first--Ms. Asai wants t’talk with ya face-t’face before they seal the deal.”

 

The cowboy stopped short and looked down, his dark brown eyes questioning. “If that’s acceptable, o’course.”

 

Hanzo pursed his lips.

 

It was already a miracle that Winston had managed to persuade the Ainu to release Ms. Vaswani along with Genji and Agent Torbjörn--now he had recruited them somehow?

 

Either the Ainu had far more nostalgia for the glory days of Overwatch than he realized or the strike commander had come a far way from the nervous wreck he had been when “recruiting” Hanzo.

 

But talking with Asai was one of the last things he wanted to do. She had been the key, the last link that led from Hirō to the homestead where the trail otherwise may have gone cold. Without her interference, who knew whether the Sombra Collective had the resources to search the whole of Ainu-Mosir--but no one would ever know now.

 

He never would have thought to place Asai in the same category as Dr. Ziegler in terms of overreach, but here they all were.

 

But if her agreement to the collaboration depended on him, then he had no choice.

 

“Of course, Agent McCree,” he said, sitting upright in bed to avoid having too much of it in the background if it was also a video call.

 

“Alright, but, uh--me or someone’s gotta be in the room with ya t’show that you’re gettin’ the best treatment,” the cowboy said almost sheepishly. “Angie’s comin’, but she fell asleep and now she’s groggy as hell, so, uh--is it alright if I start out as cameraman?”

 

Given his recent comparison, it might be better that Dr. Ziegler not come at all--who knew what the two of them might get up to together. And if she was as groggy as she had been when she woke up on the Orca on their way to Nepal, then she might not present the best picture to their potential allies.

 

They might even think she was drunk.

 

But still. That left the cowboy.

 

Hanzo started to think through the merits of asking Agent D.Va instead, but he stopped himself--the cowboy would likely have offered that option if it existed. He could trust him enough to know that.

 

“Very well,” he said, settling back.

 

“Alright,” said the cowboy, hurrying along again. “See in in three.”

 

Hanzo ended the call and looked around to see if he could adjust the headrest of the hospital bed a little higher--the more alert and upright he looked, the better. He found the little remote control hidden underneath his pillow and was just settling into the new configuration when Athena announced the arrival of the cowboy. With a glance at Sakura curled up next to the cardboard box in the tub, he allowed the cowboy in--and he burst in without knocking.

 

“Alright, lemme just--aw, hell.”

 

Sakura’s sudden panicked scurrying made audible scraping, scratching noises against the bottom of the tub as she twisted upright and threw herself at the hole in the box, plugging it up with her body.

 

The cowboy, meanwhile, had frozen almost in mid-step. “Aw, sorry there, cherry blossom,” he said in a low, slow voice. “Forgot myself again.”

 

She meowed reproachfully at him, just this side of a growl. He raised his hands placatingly, his comm in his flesh hand. “I know, I know, I’m on thin ice. I won’ forget it again.” He looked over at Hanzo with a mix of shame and embarrassment on his face. “You, uh--you mind throwin’ me some of them snacks? Sometimes she’ll accept one as an apology.”

 

Nonplussed, Hanzo tossed him one of the bags, which the cowboy caught deftly. He fished out a treat and cautiously approached the tub, holding the treat straight out and between the fingertips of his metal hand--which was presumably a safety measure.

 

Sakura watched him with wide, alert eyes, but she did not hiss or bristle. He squatted by the tub when he got within arm’s-reach and placed his hand on the edge. “C’mon,” he all but cooed at her. “You can get it.”

 

She gave a small huff and moving very, _very_ slowly, she rose to her feet, sniffing at the treat despite the distance. The cowboy waited for thirty seconds or so before he smiled a bit. “Well, that’s an improvement, at least. I’ve been tossin’ ‘em t’her from across the room.” He dropped the treat into the tub and directly retreated, still moving slow and with both his hands in plain sight. “But at least she ain’ hissin’ and spittin’. That wouldn’ have made for a good impression on Ms. Asai.”

 

Hanzo watched him while trying to suppress an increasing sense of wariness. Facing the cowboy with other people in the room was one thing; facing him alone once more was turning out to be quite another.

 

It was becoming somewhat of a mantra: it was not an act.

 

But oddly enough, something else was tugging at Hanzo as he and the cowboy looked at each other, something other than the incessant mantra, but he could not quite put his finger on it.

 

But there was no time for it.

 

“When will we begin the call?” he asked, businesslike.

 

“Right away, if you’re ready,” answered the cowboy. “They’re waitin’ on us right now.”

 

Hanzo looked at him flatly. Winston and Asai were waiting for the call at this very moment, yet the cowboy had chosen to placate a feral cat before anything else.

 

Well. As he said, it would be awkward for a raging cat to be yowling in the background of delicate negotiations, even if he had shut her up in the bathroom.

 

“I am ready.”

 

“Alrighty, it’ll be like a conference call. First I gotta show Ms. Asai that you’re not in prison and you’re gettin’ taken care of with my comm, then we can switch t’your comm. Sound good? Alright,” he said again to Hanzo’s nod. “Athena, let’s get things a-goin’.”

 

“Right away, Agent McCree,” said Athena. “Connecting.”

 

Hanzo barely had an opportunity to wonder what persona he was expected to project before his comm flashed to reveal the image of Asai, dressed in traveling clothes, dwarfed by Winston despite him sitting on the other side of an old, batter table. He wore a kind of black-and-white, padded jumpsuit--it likely fitted under the exoskeleton he wore into battle.

 

Hanzo recognized the background with a pang--they were in the back of Asai’s little shop in Hirō, between the grocery store and the exit to the storage units.

 

He focused on Asai as quickly as he could.

 

She was peering at him with a troubled expression. She opened her mouth but hesitated.

 

Hanzo could barely refrain from pursing his lips. An Asai that was anything but forthright was deeply unnatural. He almost seized the initiative to demand what information she needed, but he stopped himself just in time. Winston was looking at her expectantly--if the strike commander wished for her to take the initiative, than Hanzo must, too.

 

“They say they got you fixed up, boy,” she said at last in Ainu, her voice more gravelly than usual. “Is it true?”

 

Hanzo looked up from his comm to face the cowboy, who was holding his own comm out and slowly panning it from one side to the other to show off the medical equipment at his bedside. “Yes, Asai,” he said, his voice flat as he looked down at his comm again. “D--the doctor says that I will be discharged in five days’ time.”

 

She wrinkled her nose. “You’re angry,” she said quietly. “Are you angry at me or angry because they’re holding you captive? Or both?”

 

He could hardly keep from rolling his eyes. If she truly suspected he was under duress, she might have tried for subtlety of some kind despite the language barrier. But Asai had never been one for subtlety.

 

“I am not a captive,” he said shortly. “If you have suspicions, tell me what I must do to allay them.”

 

She looked at him for a few moments. “I’m sorry.”

 

He blinked, thrown. An apologetic Asai was, impossibly, even more unnatural. “What?”

 

“Your teammates,” she said, glancing at the gorilla looming over her, “were good enough to check my computer, and they tell me it was hacked soon after you passed through. I’m sorry. I knew you didn’t want to be found, so I should have written everything down on a piece of paper and kept it under lock and key. I have plenty of locks and keys, after all.”

 

Hanzo really did purse his lips at that. As rare as an apology from her must be, he could not not appreciate it. Apologies was fruitless once the damage was done. “Think nothing of it,” he muttered, keen to put that business to one side. “It was bound to happen eventually. What information do you require in order to agree to collaborate with Overwatch?”

 

She waved a slightly gnarled hand. “Of course we’ll do it,” she said with a hint of impatience. “I didn’t recognize Torbjörn Lindholm, but everyone knows Tracer and Winston. If either of them had been at your home, we never would have taken you all prisoner right out of the teleporter like that.” Her eyes sharpened. “I _don’t_ like the look of that Vishkar woman, though. I know she provided the means to find Talon in time, but she’s got a stick up her ass about as big as yours, and not for as good a reason near as I can tell.”

 

His insides went cold. “As good a reason?” he echoed, looking at her hard.

 

“Your brother,” she said with a slight smile, “is not nearly as close-mouthed as you.”

 

A scowl threatened to spread across his face, and Asai immediately sobered at the sight of it. “Truthfully, I suspected you were ex-yakuza for a long time,” she said with a little shrug. “That’s why we followed you home--I wasn’t about to let yakuza set up shop in our homeland. After that, it was to keep tabs on you in case anything happened. I’m sorry your location got out to the wrong people, but I won’t apologize for looking after one of my own.”

 

Hanzo’s jaw clenched for a moment, but his jaw muscles had suffered too much abuse--they gave way easily when he forced himself to speak. “I have _never_ claimed to be one of you,” he said quietly, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

 

“Yeah, but frankly I was hoping to convince you,” she said, equally quietly. “But maybe you have better things to do than abide by an old woman’s wishes. It seems the world could use you more.” Then she drew herself up and stabbed a finger at the camera. “But I’m not giving up entirely! Go save people, but there is a home here for you to come back to. There are plenty of abandoned farms out here, you know. Come back and pick another one. Tell your brother to learn Ainu and come help you rebuild, for my peace of mind _and_ his. He had a lot of questions about you, you know. It’s obvious you haven’t kept in touch like you should.”

 

Hanzo felt a little breathless. The thought of Asai and Genji speaking to each other--two people who should never have met--what had they said to each other? What had they told each other?

 

For a moment he lamented having ever said in his bloodloss-driven delirium that Genji was his brother.

 

“It is impossible for me to return,” he said with as much finality as possible. “I do not know when I can return to Japan, much less Ainu-Mosir. Many people are likely to come asking after me, and I cannot risk being anywhere near them.”

 

“They will find nothing,” Asai all but growled. “Not a word will pass our lips about you. If they ask who you are, we will say ‘Acapo-Akno’. If they ask if we have seen you, we will say ‘on TV’. If they ask where you are, we will say ‘in our hearts’. You saved our homeland, boy. We all know it, and we won’t forget it. Ask anything of us, and it is done. Test me,” she declared, raising her chin to set against the scowl now plain on his face, “but don’t _test_ me. I’m far more stubborn than you.”

 

“You do not know me, Asai,” he almost hissed, leveling his voice at the last possible moment. “You do not know who you offer your home and your help to. Save it for Overwatch--their goals and their histories are far more in line with yours. Were it not for them, I would not have been anywhere close to the Omnium, nor would I have had any desire to go there. _They_ saved your homeland. Offer _them_ what you can, not me.”

 

“Then why were you the only one bleeding out on the ground?” she barked back. “We buried your blood on your homestead, you know. It was mainly to protect you from Kenas-unarpe, but you can’t sit there and deny that this land has no hold over you or that you have no claim to its protection.”

 

“I did not spill my blood for you or Ainu-Mosir,” Hanzo said hotly. “It is not mine to give! It all goes to repay the debt!”

 

“The debt your brother has forgiven, you mean?”

 

Hanzo felt his jaw slacken in shock.

 

“What?” he managed to croak.

 

“I asked him what the hell made you go out into the middle of nowhere by yourself for six months every year,” she responded with a bit of a sick smile. “He said a debt you owe him, in part. But the debt has been forgiven, if a stubborn jackass like you would only believe it. My words, not his,” she added when Hanzo’s eyes flashed with anger. “He was quite gentle by comparison--outwardly.”

 

“Too gentle,” Hanzo shot back. “Did he tell you what the debt is? Did he say _why_ it’s unforgivable?”

 

“No. And he asked me quite nicely not to ask, once I told him to knock it off with the smarm he was trying to pull off. He said it would crush you if I knew, since you admired me so much--can you believe such bullshit?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “As if you’d admire anyone as stubborn as yourself. Respect, maybe, but never admire. But anyway. If saving my homeland is your way of paying a debt, then I’m hardly any less thankful. The only thing I should do in light of that is include your brother in my gratitude, but I already have, hence my invitation to bring him along-- _after_ he learns the language. You’re both welcome here, and that’s final. Keep that in mind for the future you refuse to see.”

 

Before Hanzo could reply, she abruptly stood from the table and looked at Winston. “We are done,” she said, her English thickly accented. “We go to Omnium two-- _in_ two hours.” And she stalked out of the camera view with hardly a glance more at Hanzo.

 

Hanzo fought back the urge to call her back and set her straight--it would be a fruitless and counterproductive endeavor for more than one reason.

 

“Uh, thank you,” Winston blurted at Asai’s retreating back. He glanced between her and Hanzo a couple of times before he ventured with apparent nervousness, “How are you, agent?”

 

Hanzo sat back with pursed lips, fighting to regain a semblance of propriety before he replied. “Very well, Commander,” he said at last when he felt he could speak as respectfully as Winston warranted. “I am in perfect health, thanks to the doctor.”

 

Winston grinned. It was surprising how happy he looked despite his fangs small and sharp on the screen. “Good to hear!” he exclaimed, thumping the table a little with the huge palm of his hand. “Good to hear. I was hoping to be there when you woke up, given what you did and what you’ve been through. You deserve to hear this in person, but given the circumstances--well.” He shrugged with a chagrined slant to his lips. “Despite that, let me just say: well done. Great work. Thank you. Coming out the other end of an encounter with Talon _and_ a half-active Omnium with only three non-fatal casualties is--well. Far less than anyone would have expected, and you played a big part in that. So--thank you.”

 

Hanzo grit his teeth. How many times would he be thanked and praised for deeds he had no claim to?

 

So far only the cowboy had a valid reason to be grateful.

 

“Think nothing of it, Commander,” he managed to say, just short of biting out the words.

 

“You’ll forgive my commander’s prerogative if I do think something of it,” Winston said, a little smugly.

 

Hanzo almost had to literally, physically bite his tongue.

 

“But in all seriousness,” said Winston, lowering his voice. “Thank you. You’ve sacrificed a lot for Genji and Overwatch already, and I promise you it hasn’t gone unnoticed, whether you prefer it that way or not. I’ll make sure not to waste any of the opportunities you’ve helped make possible, agent--I swear it.”

 

Winston looked so sincere it was painful to look at, but Hanzo kept his eyes level and his voice as dispassionate as possible. “I have no reason to think that you ever would, Commander.”

 

Winston looked a little shocked, his mouth opening a little, before he closed it and cleared his throat subconsciously, looking almost--flustered.

 

Hanzo thinned his lips. He had not meant for his words to have such force.

 

“W-well,” said the gorilla, visibly trying to regain his composure. “I’ll go and prepare for this mission then, just to be extra sure I don’t. Have a good night, agent--rest and recover well. We’ll be in touch with the results as soon as we can.”

 

Hanzo nodded in acknowledgement, and Winston reached to the side of the screen. Athena’s stylized logo popped up to signal the end of the call.

 

He looked up as the cowboy lowered his own comm. “Phew,” he said, rolling back his shoulders. “That was a long time t’play cameraman.”

 

“My apologies,” said Hanzo, at a loss of what else to say.

 

“Not your fault,” he said immediately. “Never did agree on a signal t’switch to your comm, so it’s my fault, mostly.” He looked down at the tub and cautiously approached it. Sakura still sat at the side of the cardboard box, but at some point she had relaxed enough that she was no longer physically blocking the hole with her body. She was still alert, of course, watching the cowboy’s every move with her fur slightly puffed, but she was relatively quite relaxed.

 

“There you are, cherry blossom,” the cowboy all but crooned. “I thought maybe you’d managed t’get some shuteye, but no such luck with my lumberin’ ass in the room, huh?” He shook his head a little as he backed up. “I’ll get outta all y’all’s hair. Have a good night, Agent Shimada.”

 

Hanzo frowned as the cowboy turned and headed for the door, still moving slowly while in sight of Sakura. The feeling that he was missing something, that he needed to do something connected with the cowboy, was strengthening. He thought hard and quickly, trying to suss out the reason before it could drive him mad--though, he might be better off obsessing over that instead of over--instead of over Genji, like he was likely to do as he tried to sleep.

 

At that moment, contrarily, it came to him.

 

“Why do you call her ‘cherry blossom’?” he asked abruptly, catching the cowboy just as the door opened.

 

He paused and turned back, expression confused. “Uh--isn’ that what it means? ‘Sakura’?”

 

“Yes,” Hanzo said slowly, “it does.” But rather than abating, the feeling intensified--there was some significance he was not grasping about the cowboy knowing the meaning of a single Japanese word.

 

Unless--

 

“Did--did you look up the meaning? Or did you know it already?” he asked. _Sakura_ was a well-known word outside Japan. Surely--

 

But the cowboy scrunched up his lips slightly as though he wanted to bite his bottom lip, but instead he seemed to gather himself, standing a little taller. “No, I--” Then, despite his preparation, he faltered for a split second, closing his mouth before he determinedly said, “As it turns out, I speak Japanese, so--” Then his determination failed him and his voice trailed off and he gave a little shrug instead.

 

Hanzo stared at him. “You speak Japanese,” he repeated.

 

The cowboy hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “Yeah. I learned, back after I knew Genji for a while. I--I thought maybe it’d help him out a little.”

 

The feeling of missed significance did not go away, but it faded under a kind of horrified embarrassment.

 

When Genji had come to him in the abandoned Omnium waystation, they had spoken Japanese--but there had been no language barrier. The cowboy had heard everything.

 

Hanzo looked away, but he could feel the blood rushing to his face. “I see,” he muttered, wishing it was possible to hide his face entirely, but he could not turn away while lying in the bed without looking absolutely and thoroughly pathetic. He tried to focus on something other than his embarrassment, preferably something he could use to send the cowboy away, but he could not simply demand that he go--not after hearing the reason the cowboy had learned the language.

 

Come to think of it--the doctor likely had a similar motivation, he realized, the memory of her speaking to him hours before slamming into him like a freight train. Genji had never spent much time on his English. It had been passable but stilted during their schooling and fallen to the wayside once he graduated high school--and then Hanzo had sent him to live among foreigners who spoke little else. A small punishment compared to everything else, but another layer of isolation in addition to his reconstructed body and trauma.

 

Forgiveness really was--

 

\--but it was not.

 

Somehow.

 

But it should have been.

 

But he could not allow himself to be swallowed up by these new revelations. Not with the cowboy standing right there.

 

Hanzo struggled to find words, any words, to try to deflect his own inner turmoil and the increasingly concerned look in the cowboy’s eyes--concern that was not an act, as his new mantra reminded him.

 

“It is no wonder he respects you.”

 

He hardly knew where the words came from--out of sheer necessity more than anything else. Perhaps out of lingering jealousy, too, since it brought to mind Genji obeying the cowboy’s orders to retreat.

 

Hanzo would never question any of Genji’s actions if he did them for the cowboy, he suddenly thought. After everything he had heard the cowboy did, after everything he had seen the cowboy do, it was only natural to expect that Genji would run to defend the cowboy, would brave battlefields for the cowboy, would obey the cowboy without question.

 

It would surprise no one if Genji forgave the cowboy for almost anything.

 

What did Hanzo have to offer in comparison?

 

Nothing but his life, and Genji did not want it.

 

The cowboy’s eyes had widened at Hanzo’s words, but his surprise was soon replaced with a more discerning, thoughtful expression. “Dunno about ‘respect’,” he said after a few moments with a dry chuckle. “He’s still hoppin’ mad at me for everything.”

 

Hanzo regarded him with a critical eye. The cowboy’s hair was drying, with little tufts and individual strands of lighter brown hair sticking up at random among the wet locks still plastered to his head, but with his facial hair groomed and his skin looking more refreshed after his shower, he looked worlds better than he had during their spate when Hanzo first woke. He still had those dark circles under his eyes, and as he dried there was a faint but strengthening smell of tobacco smoke hanging off him--the cowboy still had a ways to go before he recovered from the revelation about Gabriel Reyes.

 

And if he was going to command more missions--if he was going to command _Genji--_ then the faster he recovered, physically and mentally, the better.

 

But more than anything else, it was important to let the cowboy know exactly what kind of power he had if he did not know already.

 

Still, he had to force the words past a wall of envy that sprang up to block their path. “No one has had the power to force him to do anything he did not want to since our father,” he said quietly. “He shows his respect to his master more obviously, but never doubt that he has more respect for you than almost anyone I’ve seen.”

 

The cowboy was obviously taken aback. “Oh. Well, uh--we been through a lot together, and, uh--and I’d do anyth--” He cut himself off and swallowed, biting his bottom lip. “Well. I was gonna say I’d do anything he told me t’do, too, but we both know that ain’ true.”

 

Hanzo had to refrain from rolling his eyes. “You tried to protect him--and others--from an unacceptable risk,” he said, trying to dredge up the patience to rehash this tired argument once again. “You had good reason to go against his wishes.”

 

“Did I?” the cowboy said heavily. “I think I’ve proven I ain’ the best judge of character.”

 

Hanzo threw him a skeptical look. “You trusted a man who spared your life and distrusted a man who murdered his brother. Who would have done any different?”

 

“I can think of one person when it comes t’the latter,” said the cowboy with all the air of a quip and a small smile.

 

Hanzo pursed his lips. “Yes,” he said, more introspectively than he intended. “That is true.”

 

An awkward silence descended, which allowed Hanzo to begin dwelling on the mortifying thought of the cowboy listening in to what should have a deathbed confession once more.

 

Perhaps the cowboy did, too, because he began to shuffle his feet even as the two men stared at one another.

 

“Genji might respect me,” he suddenly blurted, “but you’re his brother. He’d give just about anything t’mend things with you, if you’d give him a chance.”

 

Hanzo blinked, and to his own surprise a single bitter laugh erupted out of him, almost like a spasm.

 

The cowboy also looked startled, but then he just looked--sad, the ends of his mouth drooping.

 

“It’s true, y’know,” he said softly. “You gotta know that by now.”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo, his voice low enough to almost be a hiss. “I know. He should not, but he does.”

 

“That’s a runnin’ theme around here. Shouldn’ but do anyway. You’re gonna haveta get used to it.”

 

Hanzo scowled. “And what have been the results?” he asked harshly. “An organization that fell to pieces, a commander turned traitor, and a grave injustice gone unrecompensed. It has not been worth the trouble, not worth the risk.”

 

“Sure hasn’,” agreed the cowboy unexpectedly, “if that’s all you’re focusin’ on. Mind you, I been focusin’ on much the same and worse things for the past few days, so maybe you just need some time t’get through all your thinking. But I recently got a kick in the ass t’get me out of my own head, so maybe I should return the favor. You remember you helped stop an Omnium in its tracks, right?”

 

Hanzo scoffed, but the cowboy kept speaking right over it.

 

“You also helped keep the whole team alive, you kept _me_ alive when I--when I lost my mind. You got us critical information and contacts that are benefittin’ us beyond our wildest dreams, and--” The cowboy paused, mouth open, look calculating. “--and,” he continued, looking determined, “you’re turning out t’be a more decent person than anyone expected, ‘cept maybe Genji. More than I expected, t’be sure. You did what you did, but you’re doin’ what you’re doin’, and it’s different from what you did. And, frankly, it’s mighty impressive.”

 

Hanzo could not help but stare, his mouth falling slightly agape.

 

The cowboy shrugged. “You heard it from Winston, and you’ll hear it from other people before too long, I reckon, so I gotta get my piece in while I can. You were mighty impressive, Agent Shimada. I’m sorry for all the hurtin’ you’re goin’ through, but I’ll be damned if I weren’ glad t’have you on the team that day. Hell of a lot better than not havin’ you there at all.”

 

Hanzo sat frozen for a moment before he forced himself to snort a little and shake his head--but more to buy time to figure out how to reply than anything else.

 

It was not an act.

 

The cowboy was being sincere.

 

_I will not disrespect their kindness._

 

He had made the promise specifically in reference to Agents Lúcio and Mei, but it felt disingenuous to claim that the cowboy meant it to only apply to them.

 

How different that conversation looked now, though! Whether the cowboy meant it that way or not, in hindsight it was as if he had been asking Hanzo not to dismiss _his_ kindness as well.

 

But old habits were difficult to break, so it was taking some time for Hanzo to formulate a response that was in keeping with the new reality thrust upon him--one in which the cowboy merited genuine respect to match his genuine kindness.

 

It felt like turning on a dime, like he was getting whiplash, but it had to be done. Hanzo _had_ respected his “acting skills” when he believed in his duplicity, so it was not an entirely foreign feeling, but nevertheless it was costing him to move the cowboy from respected enemy to respected--affiliate? Associate? Ally?

 

Whatever category Agents Mei, Lúcio, and Winston were in.

 

One thing was certain, though: his praise was excessive, given what Hanzo himself had witnessed.

 

“Had I not been there,” he finally managed to say. “You likely would have been successful anyway. Agent D.Va was far more instrumental than me. Gen--Genji was the one who discovered Talon’s plan. Without Agent Zenyatta’s support--”

 

“Ayup, that’s how a team works,” interrupted the cowboy, his lips curving up into a small, amused smile. “Everyone does their part. If we’d had Tor or ‘Reeha or Mei along, they woulda done their part, too, and maybe things woulda gone just as well, or better--or worse. But _you_ were there doing your part and being pretty handy with that bow. I’ve never seen shootin’ like that, and that’s a fact.”

 

Hanzo suppressed a real snort that time. Kindness was one thing, but hyperbole was another. “Never?” he asked dryly. “Do you shoot with your eyes closed, then?”

 

The cowboy received his words with evident surprise, his smile faltering as he was caught off-guard. “Uh--yeah, well--it’s different,” he said with the barest hint of a stammer on the first word. “With a gun, I mean. I couldn’ hope t’do what you do with that bow.”

 

“As I could not with your gun,” said Hanzo, his voice, if possible, even drier. “Your accuracy--your _speed--_ is impossible.”

 

The cowboy huffed a short laugh. “Not impossible,” he said with a full grin. “Just improbable.”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow slightly in lieu of rolling his eyes, much as he was tempted. “Evidently.”

 

“Well, now that you’re fina--now that you’re here,” the cowboy said, stumbling a little over his words, “we can get you in on the training sims, and we’ll both get t’see all the improbable things we can do. There’s more where that came from--on my side, at least. How about you?”

 

Hanzo blinked at the sudden, unexpected challenge, his pride rising indignantly to meet it--but it was another kneejerk reaction. The cowboy’s face was open and hopeful and perhaps a little nervous, with no malice behind it.

 

It had been a long time since his skills were questioned in a friendly way. More usually it was out of spite or sheer ignorance.

 

“Of--course,” he said haltingly. It was a far cry from the self-assured and cold confidence he usually answered such challenges with, but he had not expected the conversation to go in this direction at all.

 

Despite the inelegance of his response, the cowboy nodded. “Good. Good!” he said with heightening enthusiasm. “I’ll, uh, I’ll talk with Angie, see what kinda rehabilitation you’ll need after she releases you--not much, most likely, but better safe’n sorry--and then we’ll getcha into the training rotation and take it from there. Sound good?”

 

“Yes,” said Hanzo, watching the cowboy with barely concealed disbelief at his behavior. His enthusiasm seemed almost anticipatory. Like he had been--looking forward to this.

 

“Great!” The cowboy, as if suddenly cognizant of his own volume and gusto, visibly reined himself in a little. “I’ll, uh, go talk to Angie and let you rest up, then. Lemme know if you need anything, y’hear?”

 

Hanzo nodded, but the feeling of whiplash suddenly returned, like he had come to an abrupt end of his tolerance for the cowboy. Training was acceptable--mandatory, really, if Hanzo was likely to be part of more strike teams. They had had an immense amount of luck this time--no one should press it any further.

 

But offering to run errands--that was far beyond acceptable. From anyone.

 

And judging from the slightly abashed slant to the cowboy’s shoulders as he walked to the door, he knew he had crossed the line.

 

But when the door whooshed open and he stepped out into the grey hallway beyond, his shoulders straightened and he turned on his heel and called, “Start thinkin’ ‘bout your first meal, by the by. It’s tradition t’break in new organs with something special, but if it’s _real_ special we gotta order it in. Lemme know!”

 

And the door slid closed.

 

Hanzo stared at it for a long time, the parting shot ringing in the air like one of the cowboy’s actual gunshots.

 

It was not an act.

 

And the mantra was almost enough, as he turned on his side, and as he stared at the wall, and as Athena helpfully asked him if he wished for the lights to turn off, and as he stared into the darkness afterwards, to crowd out all thoughts of Genji before sleep took him.

 

Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Travelling to Watchpoint: Gibraltar
> 
> Prepare Your Defenses
> 
> This update only took one month, three weeks, so I am improving. :|
> 
> Soooo--after Hanzo flirted with Venkata, I wanted him to flirt again--but how could he possibly flirt anytime soon???
> 
> Well--
> 
> FAN ART!!!
> 
> First, [Suikiddo's](http://sukuiddo.tumblr.com) [beautifully pastoral rendition of Chapter 20's opening scene](http://sukuiddo.tumblr.com/post/175923486651/for-claroquequiza-2nd-time-upload-hope-for-the)\--I can hear the wind and grass, it's amazing!!
> 
> Second, [Flea-Bee-Rhymes](https://flea-bee-rhymes.tumblr.com) drew [the ConfronTEAtion in Chapter 14 aboard the Orca](https://flea-bee-rhymes.tumblr.com/post/175943386516/scene-from-ch-14-of-claroquequizas)! Poor Hanzo. Poor Jesse. Things are starting to look up, guys, keep your chin up!
> 
> Third, [an intense Hanzo for an intense moment from Chapter 10](https://ivyadrena.tumblr.com/post/177423580962/justice-he-said-quietly-is-not-merely) by [Ivydrena](https://ivyadrena.tumblr.com)! Hanzo, your eyes--your laserlike eyes. Beautiful.
> 
> Fourth, [this beautifully drawn portrayal of the Chapter 20's WHAM line](http://metmarfil.tumblr.com/post/175934386510) by the ever-wonderful [Metmarfil](https://metmarfil.tumblr.com)! Complete with McCree's sad smile, Hanzo's world shattering into a million pieces, and my broken heart!
> 
> And last, [TheLadyNina](http://theladynina.tumblr.com) strikes the final blow with [Hanzo's last look at his beloved homestead.](http://theladynina.tumblr.com/post/177142722446/ladyninadraws-he-stared-straight-up-at-the-sky)
> 
> You guys. You guys, my heart. Please.
> 
> Thank you all so very, very much--all your gifts, all your comments, everything you guys do is an inexpressible joy and comfort, so thank you!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, comments, and constructive criticism are a big boon and always appreciated!
> 
> Come hang out on Tumblr! [ClaroQueQuiza](https://claroquequiza.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thank you again!


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